Remembering The Little People
Every now and again the fierce, raging deity known as my Ego must be subjugated ever so slightly (and the weapon of choice more often than not tends to be chocolate cookies and a tummy rub. Go figure.), and I acknowledge the minions--er, peasants--er, fans I may one day happen to acquire.
Today was the 9 year-old son of our store manager, who was hanging around the back strockroom thanks to the evil creature known as
Bloody Store Inventory. Now if you must ask, "What's with the bloody part?" then you have obviously never worked retail during a store inventory. Those of you who share in my beleagured sighs (this makes the 3rd inventory I've done, and all 3 have been for different stores) will call a store inventory by that "bloody" part. And given how much hell and hours it's put us through, I'm sure I'm about ready to offer up a sacrifice to some dark fiend just to ensure I don't ever have to do another bloody store inventory again.
Mel adds here that fortunately said sacrifice can't involve her or our Shih-tzu, Shady. Such sacrifices *cough* always require virgins. You can't exactly sacrifice a wife and a snipped puppy now, can you?
So what does the bloody store inventory have to do with hero worship? Well, as Lori was finishing up doing some of the counting for our stockroom, she asked me to record the SKU numbers and totals of a large stack of carry-on suitcases located near the ceiling of the stockroom. Now bear in mind that our large shelving reach from the floor to about four feet shy of the ceiling. This is a ceiling high enough that standing on an 8ft. ladder, even I can't touch it.
So there I am, atop this ladder inspecting the tags on old, dust-ridden luggage. The last stack of tags I need to check are just out of my reach on the ladder. So what do I do? I wind up straddling two different shelving units on opposites sides of a narrow part of the storeroom. I'm more or less a human bridge...and on a
Jackass-styled note, had anyone wanted to, they could have passed right under me, punched me in the groin and watched me fall to the cold, cement floor in an "I'll get you, Gadget!" heap.
As I'm doing the bridge-over-troubled-bloody-inventory thing, Lori's son remarks in not-so-subtle awe, "Mom, look what he's doing! That's so cool!" I smirked as I continued to carefully inspect the tags in my perilous position. I had a fan who though my latent skills from gymnastics was cool.
Luckily for me, he wasn't looking when a few seconds later I nearly slipped and castrated myself on the corner of a cardboard box.
Today's Demonstration of Murphy's Law: since everything in the back stockroom of the store was counted for the bloody inventory, nothing could be removed from it. In essence, what was out on the floor, even if it was stuffed for display purposes and the only item of its kind there, we'd have to sell it. Naturally, this was the day that everyone wanted all the ridiculously huge dufflebags that were a) stuffed, and ; b) the only one of its kind out on the store floor.
Three large freakin' garbage bags of crumpled paper and stuffing from today alone can testify to this.
posted by Phillip at 6:55 PM
