It's Raining Maintenance Men....
Hallelujah?
Well, actually, had the maintenance guy made one wrong step or even shifted his weight, I would have had the most interesting Store Incident Report to fill out. Namely: 'guy fell through ceiling.' There were a number of maintenance workers running around the mall, checking each store's sprinkler heads for the fire system. This required him to go above our ceiling tiles and rummage around to make sure everything was in proper working order.
So while he was standing on a ladder (as opposed to doing some crazy
Mission: Impossible thing like cling to the ceiling rafters & hanging precariously above the tiles), it was rather interesting to come into the store and see this pair of feet sticking out from the ceiling. Especially if you didn't see the ladder first, for a moment you would think that the maintenance guy had actually gotten stuck in the ceiling and couldn't get down at all.
From one of my own previous jobs, I can attest that it's rather fun to be poking around above the ceiling tiles of a store. Granted even I weighed too much to actually be able to crawl around in there, and thusly had to use a ladder, but it's still pretty neat to see just how unkempt everything is behind the scenes.
And in other news, I have discovered that the most effective way to traumatize my wife is to molest cute stuffed animals she wants to purchase. Most of you have now paused and reread that last sentence over again just to make sure you'd read it right. Allow me to explain: we were buying some groceries for dinner, and came across a bin filled with large, Easter-themed stuffed animals.
Now Mel has an impressive Achilles Heel: her iron will turns into tin foil when confronted with cute things. And amidst this pile of plushies was a large, cute-looking sheep. When I say large, I do mean large. This sheep was larger than Shady, our Shih-tzu. Upon seeing it, Mel immediately squeaked, "Cuuuuuuute!" and glomped onto it. She then proceeded to give me these Bambi eyes, imploring me to purchase such a cute sheep for her.
Admittedly our budget is tight, with rent and expenses and groceries, so I knew we couldn't afford to buy the plush sheep. Nor was I about to endure a 10 minute sulking session where Mel would walk around moping about how cute the sheep was, and how she had to leave it behind. (If you think I'm being cruel in my description, then you obviously were not around when she was pouting over the KareKano DVD box set she couldn't buy...and I did buy behind her back as a Commercialmas present.)
So what was I to do? We had to leave the sheep behind, and I also didn't want a sulky-saturated aftermath. Then I had a brilliant idea! Well...it was an idea, at any rate. I smiled at Mel, took the sheep in my hands, held it's back end against my crotch, and slowly turned to Mel with a very evil grin on my face.
To say she was horrified would be an understatement. I only wish I'd had a camera there to capture her sheer shock and disbelief for posterity. Needless to say we didn't get the sheep, and Mel didn't moon over it either. Instead all she could do was gesture towards the stuffed animal bin and let out these sad, horrified squeaks at random intervals. In all honesty, she couldn't picture the sheep anymore without seeing my evil grin right behind it.
Ah, trauma. Nothing kills consumerism quite the way it does.
Mel's Lesson of the Day: "Never mix sex and hot showers. It makes you light-headed and dizzy." And I quote. (And will no doubt hurt because of it ;)
posted by Phillip at 8:22 PM
