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!

 

If any of you were watching CSI:NY last night (which will soon be followed by the latest franchise installment of CSI: Dildo, Nfld.), you might have noticed Ted Raimi guest starring as a creepy garage mechanic with a knack for building custom-designed B&D machines, such as the automatic spanker or the car-mounted Victorian Cross. It's always nice to see people enjoy their hobbies. But did anyone else just find it strange to see Ted Raimi featured in something that wasn't directed by or involving his brother, Sam?

In other news, Chance has decided he is no longer a feline, but a meerkat instead. As of late, whenever I step out of the shower, he's perched on the toilet with his butt bracing him on the lid, and his front paws held up at his chest like he's surveying the African Savannah.

But let's talk about fun in the retail sector, shall we? Because those of us suffering in service industries can all attest that yes, customers suck. However, in this instance, I have to admit to never being so gratified to see two rude customers battle it out to see who got to buy a piece of luggage. Bordering heavily on "just plain rude", this overbearing couple called me over and had me explain a bunch of things about the different bits o' luggage--this being done between them having lengthy chats with a friend they happened across in the store. Then they left to look around at the luggage in other stores.

While they were out, a regular (we lament this fact) with the reputation of poking intently around the store for almost an hour at a time, asking ridiculous questions (and then asking them all over again once we've finished answering) and then never buying anything in the end, appears in the store.

Well, she decided today was a good day to look at a few pieces of luggage. By "a few", I mean "everything we had on display". Repeatedly. I swear there must have been some obssessive-compulsive disorder driving her to do this, because she kept coming back to one set and then thoroughly inspecting & examining one specific piece...for ten minutes at a time. As she's doing this, the overbearing couple from earlier return...and guess which bits o' luggage they want to buy?

In a hilarious case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", I got to stand back and casually watch these two go at it to see who would get the luggage. Madame Must-Examine-For-Hours began in a not so friendly tone of, "No, you can't have these. I'm still looking at them."

Sir I-Must-Have-My-Way then took matters into his own hands and retorted not to me but to her in an equally hostile voice: "Well, we're looking at getting them."

Whereupon she glared at him and stated, "Well, I'm still debating."

And he snarled back, "Well, we were in here a half hour ago looking at them, and we've already decided we're getting those."

For me, it ultimately was a win-win situation. If either of them left (which one did), it'd be one less annoying tit for me to contend with. And if they killed and/or ate each other in the process, I wouldn't have had to deal with both! Hooray for me! I wonder how much my grin was showing as, in the end, Madame Look-At-Things-Forever finally left in a snit and a huff, and stormed out of the store. I then retrieved the luggage and promptly got Sir Mine-All-Mine! out of the store with his happy purchases.

In other news, apparently now our new Spiderman backpacks come in beef flavour. At least, that's what I'm guessing, given how the label on the box they came in proudly proclaimed BEEF FLAVOURED!, and the backpacks themselves were rather ripe with the scent of those beef flavouring packets you find in Ramen Instant Noodles. I personally think this is brilliant: now when kids think Spiderman, they'll think cow! (Cash cow...)

On the other hand, the matching Spiderman lunchboxes smell like chocolate toffee bars. Or maybe we're starting a new like of "Scratch N Sniff" schoolwear. I really wouldn't know, as all of the Emails from Head Office that manage to arrive to us intact are in French. But if any new "Shrek 2" backpacks come in chicken flavour/scent, I'll be sure to let all of you know immediately!


And finally, today's installment of "Ah, The Things You Hear In Passing!" A few days ago, an older woman and her elderly mother happened by the front the store, and I was within earshot to hear the younger of the two exclaim, "You just can't blow through an intersection and make an illegal lane change!" That sort of remark makes me wonder if this woman might have been from Toronto. (A joke that will be lost on anyone who has yet to learn how suicidal or just plain maniacal TO drivers can be.)


UPDATE: in a brillaint fit of stupidity, I managed to burn an entire pot of rice tonight. Black, have-to-scrape-off-with-a-spatula kind of burnt. And yes, it involved those infamous stovetop burners I've always had trouble relationships with in the past. Though mind-bogglingly enough, the kettle remained perfectly unharmed. Go figure.

To quote Mel: "How do you burn rice?! That's like burning noodles!"

Me: "I think I've done that before, come to think of it."

Mel: [argh!] "Oh God."
posted by Phillip at 5:21 PM

 

Yesterday morning I awoke to a strange knock at the door. Roused from an otherwise peaceful sleep, I shuffled out in my boxers and opened the door. Standing there in the hallway was Valentine's Day, grinning like some idiot hybrid between a Jehovah's Witness, a landshark and a group of carollers. Unimpressed, I closed the door, locked it and went back to bed.

Later, at the more humane hour of noon, Mel & I roused ourselves from the bed, and set out to enjoy Valentine's Day by paying bills, borrowing library books and watching George of the Jungle on DVD. Ah, romance!

(Hey, I look at it this way: if you take only one day out of 365 to show your s.o. how much you love them, then there's a problem. What are you doing the other 364 days?)

In other news, our kitten has taken to trying to eat the buttons off my shirts. I probably wouldn't object so much to Chance doing this...except for the fact that he tries to eat my buttons off the shirts I happen to be wearing. Nothing causes you to pause in typing than when you feel a cat's little set of fangs trying to render your shirt debuttoned.

Today's Lesson: dinners always taste better when the company you work for is paying for them.
posted by Phillip at 7:37 AM

 

It's amazing how sometimes all the wrong emotions can work so well towards writing. To cut out all the ugly parts and make a long story short, my mother managed to spark newfound ire in pretty much everyone else in the family. Though instead of stomping around the apartment in a listless rage, I sat down and much to my surprise, wrote more in an hour or two than I have probably all week. My productivity is disturbing in a way; can I only write now when I'm outraged? For that matter, if this is the case, why haven't I been able to write more when the "March of the Pinhead Customers" has been going on in our store the last few days? This would all be made so much easier if our Head Office would make tasers a part of the official uniform.

Speaking of potential outrage, I'm not even entirely sure what to think of this article:

German 'Homosexual' Penguins Spark Gay Protest

BERLIN (Reuters) - A plan by a German zoo to test the sexual appetites of a group of suspected homosexual penguins has sparked outrage among gay and lesbian groups, who fear zookeepers might force them to turn straight. "All sorts of gay and lesbian associations have been e-mailing and calling in to protest," said a spokesman for the zoo in the northwestern city of Bremerhaven on Friday.

He said the zoo concluded the penguins might be gay after seeing male penguins trying to mate with other males and trying to hatch offspring out of stones. German media reported that female Swedish penguins would be brought to the zoo to test the theory, but when word got out about the plan, the phones started ringing. "Nobody here is trying to break-up same sex pairs by force," the zoo's director Heike Kueck told public broadcaster NDR. "We don't know if the three male pairs are really gay or just got together because of a lack of females."

The news link via Yahoo is here:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&e=5&u=
/nm/20050211/sc_nm/life_germany_penguins_dc


Today's Lesson: a hammer and a plastic-capped thumbtack just do not go well together...unless you want lots of plastic debris from where you shattered the thumbtack.
posted by Phillip at 6:28 AM

 

Behold the sci-fi/fantasy/comic geek's timeline: http://www.captaincomics.us/forums/index.php?showtopic=1075 From Jedi Knights to Black Adder to the Space Battleship Yamato to Sauron vs. Ghidorah. It's mostly all there. Although it should be known my eyes started to cross before I managed to reach the 1700's.

In other news, Mel's very important lesson of the day is: never wear clogs when you are walking outside on slushy chunks of ice that are only half-frozen and have water lurking underneath, which can subsequently eat both your shoes. You see, as we were walking Shady last night, Mel literally stumbled into a bit of a problem. While I don't think they were clogs specifically, she was wearing the sort of shoes that allows you slide your feet in and out, with nothing else to really hold your feet into the shoe. As we were walking around the school playground near our place, we were forced to cross a rather treacherous area that had only partially frozen drifts of snow and ice. Beneath these unstable mounds were large pockets of unfrozen water.

Imagine Mel's surprise when suddenly the snow beneath one of her shoes collapsed. She lurched to one side as the puddle beneath the snow soaked her shoe and her sock. But this unto itself wasn't really the problem. You see, as she tried to quickly pull her foot out of the puddle, the still semi-solid ice managed to wedge her shoe in place. So poor Mel's foot slid out of the shoe, and she was stuck hopping around on one foot while I in turn had to forcibly yank her shoe out from the ice.

But this unto itself wasn'y really the problem. You see, as she was hopping around on one foot, her other shoe sank into a patch of ice and water. And it too got lodged in the ice. So suddenly Mel's hopping around in just her socks, with both shoes wedged into the snow. I in turn had to forcibly yank both shoes out from the ice. Despite the squelchy socks and cold toes, Mel managed the return home, whereupon she changed her socks and stuck her feet in front of a warm heating register.

I'm tempted to laugh as I reread this...but my self-preservation instincts are kicking in.


posted by Phillip at 7:30 AM

 

This last week, there's been luggage. Lots of it. There's also been counting of our store's merchandise. Lots of that too. There's been lots of long, arduous hours. There's also been a 4am wake-up call to make sure the last batch of it could be counted before the store opened for 9:30am. And there's been a number of muscles in my back I've recently discovered I had, only because of the way they've been twinging in the wake of hauling around heavy-assed loads of luggage.

I would not want to say I hate store inventory. "Hate" is such a strong and dark word. I would prefer to say: I strongly despise store inventory with an eternal passion. Alternately I could say I actually love store inventory the same way I'd love a colonic irrigation or a fatal case of the Plague.

This entire week has been a blur of late nights, early mornings, exhausting shifts, and vain attempts to recover from all the exhaustion. I could be exaggerating. I probably am, being a writer and all. It still doesn't change the fact that I am tired and am going to bed. To quote Maral: "Beh."

Today's Lesson: the cat will eat the dog's food regardless of how much you try to ensure otherwise.


posted by Phillip at 8:23 PM