A Poodle With Pink Toenails

I wouldn't even shell out to get a pedicure for myself at the moment, but sure. This is worth it.

One Outta Two Ain't Bad

How pathetic would this be if Obama had lost? I think it's weird that he (or she, but I'm assuming it's a guy) still has the Kerry Edwards sticker. Even if he couldn't get it off, he could've stuck the Obama one OVER it. What I think we have here, folks, is a classic case of stubbornness. He had to prove that ONE time, he got it right.

I'm back... again. With ideas this time!

Most of what I made fun of before was seen on many other websites, but my current obsession (a la Fruits) is taking pictures of anything and everything I find amusing. Often, I put them up on facebook, and many of my friends - who may just be very loyal, I don't know - have said my too elaborate captions are often the best part.

And as I can guarantee that no one else on this whole wide web has all the photos I have taken, I figured... why not do it with them?
Let's give it a try, shall we?

And away we go!

It's December Now, And You Know What That Means...

...I'm listening to The Chipmunks' Christmas Song. More specifically, their entire album, which has David Seville singing on it.
I tend to be really hard on poor old Dave as being a freak for referring to three freakishly large chipmunks as his "sons" but in real life, if I met a fellow who adopted three overlarge chipmunks and trained them to sing in perfect harmony, I'd be very intrigued. I daresay I might even fall in love with someone who made such a claim.

Veteran's Day Four (I always get that Roman Numeral wrong)

Yesterday, three little girls came into the store with their mother or grandmother. The oldest may have had some form of Asperger's (Stacy), the shortest (Christine) had NO concept of money (Her: "How much is this hamster in the wheel?" Me:"$6." Her:"I have $3." Me:"..." Her:"Can I buy it?") and their friend (or adopted sister - as she was black, and they were white), I thought I heard the grandmother refer to as Topanga. Her name must be something else, I thought, but I heard the grandmother say it again. I almost ASKED the girl when she checked out with me if her name was Topanga, but as she looked to be about eight I thought that might have been crossing a line, even for me. Topanga wanted to buy a single un-inflated balloon (industry term), to which her mother/grandmother/friends' mother/grandmother said no. “We’re not buying ONE balloon.” Topanga attempted to soften her by reasoning, "It's gonna pop sooner or later."

(Until now, I didn’t even realize the “that’s what she said” possibilities on that one. It took me more than 24 hours to do so. I’m maturing.)

Veteran's Day III

Coffee Crisp is a candy. I can't describe it at all (I wouldn't touch anything coffee - even if it involved chocolate - with a ten foot pole). I really only know it exists because I vaguely recollect seeing it in my youth at the store where I now work, and I only vaguely recollect that after having people ask me incessantly whether we carry it once I began working the candy counter. To make matters worse, we don't have Coffee Crisp bars. I'm not sure whether they're seasonal or the company has stopped making them altogether, but I do know, due to countless fallen faces upon hearing the news, that they are very hard to find. The Coffee Crisp query, about 50% of the time, goes hand-in-hand with one about Aero Bars (they sound way cooler than they are), which we also lack.

Yesterday - Veteran's day, an insanely busy day due to schools and some offices being closed - I swear, every other group of people who wandered in asked me for Coffee Crisp (and or Aero bars.) Some didn't ask me, just began exclaiming about them as soon as they walked in. "I'm sorry, we don't have Coffee Crisps. No Aero bars either," I began automatically adding, upon just hearing the term "Coffee Crisp," whether or not it was directed at me.

By the end of the day, I truly WAS sorry. I don't even mean in a sarcastic way. I am honestly sorry when we lack something. This particular five and dime is a place where to which many people travel from great distances to track down something from their youth, or something their aged mother loves that they can't get anywhere else. People expect to find anything here. When we don't have something I HAVE heard of before - chocolate lipstick, say, or jumping jacks (the toys, not the excercises) - I feel like a failure, like we've let them down and inconvinienced them. Even worse is the fact that this is my family's store; it's like I DO bring dishonor upon my family because we were all out of Sponge Candy. I feel terrible when we can't bring someone the happiness they desire from items of yesteryear.

And I know what you're thinking: it's consumerism, that won't make anyone happy. But it's not. Oftentimes it's people trying to find the perfect gift for someone. The satisfaction I get from finding something someone's son asked for for his fifth birthday that couldn't be found anywhere else is as intense as the failure/guilt I experience by NOT finding it. I feel I have to search every cupboard top to bottom in order to find a requested item - and because the store is so huge, I feel that whatever people ask for (especially if we have had it in the past... 79 years) MUST be there, and that I'm just not being the best employee I can be if I do not find it.

One of my first days, an adorable little girl asked if we had any ladybug "wobots." I lead her to the wind-up toys, among which was a ladybug, and, pointing it out, asked if that was what she meant. She said yes, but then asked if we had one that flew around. I said no, this time knowing we didn't carry one, having never seen one of those anywhere. I felt terrible, and her speech impediment didn't help that. I imagined her in fifteen years standing at the top of a bell tower with a machine gun, shouting over the helicopters to the cops who came to talk her down, "You know why I'm up here? Because there ARE no flying ladybug wobots!"

On the same receipt on which I'd jotted the "Sandy" note (which was probably ten words long on the back of the receipt) was just one other note, which read "Big Break." I assume this refers to myself and what I should be doing to expediate that. (Hello, Blogspot!) Am I delusional, or will writing about middle schoolers awkwardly watching a horse (and then their friend sexually harrassing the horse) be my Sorcerer's Stone? And is the Daria buffet I've been stuffing my brain with in the past week subtly sardonifiying* my writing style even moreso?


*I know this is not a real word. It should be.