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!

 
Wahoobidahey?

The world is filled with mystery, with things that don't make sense. There's how they get the caramilk into a Caramilk Bar. There's those people who walk up to you and ask you during a luggage sale, "When is your luggage going to 95% off?" And then there are the manufacturers of handbags, who were either on crack or a very excruciating diet when they created what I affectionately call the Truffle Handbag.

Why? Because it's small, it's long and round, and it's chocolate brown with pink trimmings. It seriously resembles a giant truffle with handles. Gaudy design aside, every time I look at it, I am filled with the urge to go eat something. I wonder if this will join the Akins Diet-Friendly trend that many restaurants are jumping on. Certainly you won't gain a lot of weight as you try to tear a piece off and chew it, but I cannot help but envision the Truffle Handbag bearing the warning: Eating this handbag can be hazardous to your health.

Oh well, in this day and age we have chainsaws with the written caveat Do not attempt to stop chainsaw with hands or genitals, so perhaps the Trufflebag one isn't such a farfetched idea after all.

Though I like the designer's other idea for a similar line of handbag that's just arrived at our store. Handbags with a letter of the alphabet stitched onto them are always popular. Funny how right now, we have handbags and matching wallets sporting the letters S&M, and no others.

Quote of the Day: "Didst thou just tell thy husband to go fucketh himself off? How rude!"


posted by Phillip at 8:26 PM

 
Misery Loves Mondays

I'm starting to understand Garfield the cat's inherent loathing of this day. In fact, the only reason I can really be here around the midnight hour writing this with a cheerful smile on my face is probably because I'm doped up extra strength meds, and chocolate. Now before some of you decry my casual drug usage, might I state that I'd rather take 3-4 Sinutab pills in the last few hours than have the glorious sensation of someone stabbing a knife blade incessantly into the back of my eyeballs.

The screaming headache was only part of the misery that was Monday. Now here me out: as always, I'm one to try and put things into proper perspective. Yes, this Monday could have been a lot worse. I could have had a box of shaved, rabid mongooses (or would it be mongeese?) attacking my face, for example. But even still, this was not a memorable Monday in a good way.

There was the whole stabbing-behind-the-eyes migraine. There was also the fact that I now have an eternal loathing of luggage. Luggage should die of gonorrhoea and rot in hell. The last week has seen me move the entire damned wall of luggage 3 times now. First to check and make sure all the items were tagged. Second time around was to help out the girls stuck behind for Bloody Inventory, since they would have had to remove each individual piece anyways.

I thought after that I was safe. I thought after that there wouldn't be anything else to do with luggage unless a customer asked me about the styles or prices. I don't mind being wrong about things; it's how you learn. But I don't like being wrong about things like that. Third time around, the entire luggage wall had to be reconfigured since it's the start of a new month, and at the start of every new month, Head Office decides that we need to change the luggage display. Knobs...

My spinal column feels like Jello.

And yet...I was able to, for a time, revel in good company. Our manager and our full-timer were also working at the store today, and all three of us were dead tired and crabby thanks to the effort we've been pulling for Bloody Inventory. We were all very caustic all day long, if not borderline psychotic at some points. I was feeling weary and hating it, and yet I've never had a more pleasant if not homocidal conversation with the other employees as we did today.

It's always fun to look your co-worker straight in the eye, and have them agree that, yes, should the next customer walk in and ask a stupid-assed question about the prices for the winterwear, it would be a good idea to rip their tongue out and slap them silly with it. Just goes to show there's a little Marquis de Sade in all of us.

Today's State-The-Obvious Lesson: Misery indeed loves company. It probably also loves Belgian chocolates, long walks on the beach, and Quentin Tarantino movies.


posted by Phillip at 9:19 PM

 
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