Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 
Not Quite A Waterfall

Remember that Commercialmas song, the one that proudly boasts, "It's the most wonderful time of the year!" ? It makes me laugh, it really does. Granted it's the sort of half-maniacal, half-you go squish now with our Customer Appreciation Pancake Maker laugh that makes everyone edge away from you, but it's a laugh never the less.

This is the sort of season to be experienced from the purchasing side of the retail counter. I'm not entirely thrilled with working large crowds to interact with and watch so no thefts occur, equally large daily shipments to sort through, 6 work days a week for the next 3 weeks, and the knowledge that on Boxing Day I have to be at the bloody mall at 8:30am.

As always, I'm keen to keep in mind that my entire situation could be worse, but there's nothing that gets one's eyebrow twitching like discovering that someone at the company's head office thought it was a brilliant idea to force our stores & kiosks to open 15 minutes before every other store in the mall, and stay open 15 minutes after every other store in the mall has closed.

They're paying us for the extra half-hour, which helps balance it out somewhat (not to mention that if they didn't, the unions would come down on them like the mighty foot of Godzilla), but I do not appreciate the prospect of having to get up earlier to go to work, and staying even later than usual. Luckily I don't have to take a bus (which would be ridiculous since most of the buses leave right around the time we'd otherwise get everything closed up), but some of my co-workers do.

Remind me to send that brainiac in the head office a Customer Appreciation Pancake Maker, along with the proper instructions on how to use it on oneself. Ideally they'd take the hint and the hit. Of course...that does make me wonder of the victim would become a Darwin Award honourable mention, or else an Upperclass Twit of the Year honourable mention. Or else maybe they're a masochist.

In any case I'm still not impressed.

But I think I've ranted enough about that. Let's rant about something else, shall we? It's time for me to tell a story (and it's not of the fearless crew of the S.S. Minnow), and I only wish it was fiction. Last night, Mel & I were in the parking lot of our apartment complex, having just come back from some happy shopping.

We headed to the elevator, which connects the parking garage with the 4 other floors of the complex. The call button was pushed, and we waited for the elevator cab to glide on down. There was a whirring of air as it descended, and then abruptly stopped on another floor. And there it stayed.

And stayed a little longer.

After a minute or so, Mel & I decided that perhaps taking the stairs would be faster. So we headed for the nearest staircase. We had only taken three or four paces from the elevator doors when the sound of the elevator getting itself back in motion greeted our ears.

So we returned to the elevator...only to have a new sound greet our ears. Splashing. Lots of splashing, as if someone had spilled a drink (and a large drink at that), and it was dripping down through the base of the doors.

Suddenly the elevator doors opened up, revealing a man reeling with a beer bottle in one hand. His other hand was busy zipping up and adjusting his pants. I don't quite think he was expecting to see Mel and I standing there on the other side of those doors. If he wasn't so drunk, the expression on his face would have been priceless. Instead, he staggered out over the puddle he'd left behind and went back upstairs via the stairway.

I don't know if he had in fact spilled his beer all over his pants and the floor, and was merely trying to clean himself up. I wasn't about to test the puddle on the floor either. I'd like to think that in the ideal world, it was at worst spilled beer on that elevator floor.

In any case, Mel and I took the stairs back up to our apartment. We didn't use the elevator for the rest of the night.

Today's Lesson: two words, people. Bladder control.


posted by Phillip at 6:33 PM

 
Territoriality
(or, This Is How Pillow Fights Start)

When I woke up this morning, I discovered that I had roughly a foot of the bed's length all to myself. My feet and knees were dangling over my side of the mattress, as were my elbows, and there was not a thing I could do about it. You see, Mel had curled right up into my back, which also means she had taken up half of my pillow. And as if it had been a conspiracy of sorts, our Shih-tzu, Shady, had curled up right against the back of my knees, which made it near impossible to move with her weight pinning down the sheets.

Moving Shady would have required me to get up and physically pick her up and transplant her furry butt to another part of the bed. However, I was also pinned down by Mel's arm draped over my side and holding onto me rather snugly. So I couldn't move, and was practically teetering over the edge of the bed.

Mel was vastly amused by my recounting of this when she woke up. She also added that I deserved it for always hogging the comforter at nights. In my defense, I don't overly set out to yank the comforter over to my side of the bed; it amazes me just as much as anyone else to discover each morning that most of the comforter is not on Mel, or even on me, but is instead sitting on the floor on my side of the bed.

I'm beginning to wonder if laying claim to all the mattress space is a subtle declaration of war on Mel's part. And what's worse she's managed to coerce our puppy to fight for her side. This can only mean one thing. I don't really know what it is, but I'm sure it's something important....

Today's Lesson: Leonard Nimoy should eat more salsa.

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posted by Phillip at 8:26 AM