Ultramundane.com -- It's Just Not Natural.

Current Playlist

This is my blogchalk:
United States, California, San Francisco, The Mission, English, Spanish, Casey, Male, 31-35.

GeoURL
Who Links Here

Monday, December 15, 2003

Three Cashiers Of Christmas Presents.

"Are you ready?"

She caught me by surprise; I didn't notice that she had a nametag on at first, since she wasn't wearing the apron like the other employees at registers. She rang my things up and I handed her my credit card. She looked at the back to check the (missing) signature and looked at my driver's license.

"Is that your middle name? That's a girl's name!" She said, loudly, I told her that while it's unusual, there were at least three of us named that. "Nuh-uh, that's my mom's name!" What a...coincidence, I stammered. I was beginning to feel a little self conscious. She chewed a corner of her lip, staring at my ID again and after a moment, said, "And this picture? This could be a country western star. See?" She showed me my license picture, pointing to it with a long painted fingernail, as if I'd never seen this document before. I disagreed, saying that if I was going be a Toby Keith I would probably needed at least a hat—yes, it would take a lot more, but I didn't want to go there. "No, you don't need no hat." she said dismissively; "Then again you're working that young executive look..." I paused to look down at my black shirt, black pants and long black coat "...except for that jacket. It's too big for you, lookit that!" I was not going away without getting read by this woman, and I conceded yes, it's a little too large; I got it on sale. Triumphantly, she gave me my bag and receipt and wished me a good night.

As I left I could swear that the security guard, who merely nodded at me, was trying his best not to snicker.

* * *

It was a cute little dog; maybe six inches tall. It snaked its leash around shoppers and sniffed the containers of rubber cement, paint thinner, and other slightly less toxic art supplies. It was mostly well behaved, if a bit overstimulated. One of the employees emerged from behind the information desk with a large dog bone in hand; he struggled to break off a tiny piece, which he offered to the dog after it "sat" and "stayed." The dog sniffed the biscuit briefly, took it in its mouth and quickly spit it out onto the floor, clearly a bit disappointed. I guess the employee heard me thinking that maybe he should keep the line moving instead of feeding Milk Bones to spoiled pooches, because he looked up and told me to follow him.

We avoided getting tangled in either the leash or the crush of shoppers and walked to a temporary register set up in the middle of the store. The desk was little more than a thick piece of foam core, though the heavy register was on the end of a counter. He rang me up and I asked how his day had been. "Oh, it's been a little crazy, but I'm surviving, thanks. This is the second busiest day we have all year." I asked him what the busiest day was: "Next Saturday, just before Christmas."

I was going to ask if business had been brisk on Black Friday, but a woman queued up behind me and said loudly to her companion, as if we were a holiday window display, "I think we can just stand here. Well, he must be open, he's checking out that man right now." They crowded in closer to the counter.

The salesperson looked at me for a second, and I could tell that he had been dealing with this all day long. "You have to go stand in that line over there," he said irritatedly, pointing at the line snaking across the far wall. Sit. Stay. Rollover. No Milk Bone for her.

* * *

Like every one there before us, we picked up every toy, every digital display, and every glowing, clicking, beeping object we could get our hands on. We recorded disturbing messages on the talking baby keepsakes. We struggled to open and dissect the cool japanese pillow. We used hot dog cookers as personal massagers. That's the whole point of the store: they sell expensive toys for adults, after all, so why shouldn't we act a little like children when we're in there?

While I bought a small item, The Boyfriend was playing with a digital clock near the checkout. Beep! The register scanned my item. Beep! The digital clock showed the date. Beep! Beep! The register scanned my card, added sales tax. Beep! Beep! Beep! The digital clock showed the current temperature in Sydney. "You must be tired of listening to things beep all day," I noted to the sales clerk.

"A little," she said, "but mostly I'm just tired of the Christmas music." She winced slightly as an overwrought swing version of "Let It Snow" moved from the bridge to the chorus. I briefly contemplated what a Kraftwerk version of the song would sound like.

The next morning, I found myself singing "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" in the shower.

06:58 PM PST (link)

Working Furiously In Santa's Sweatshop.

The last couple of weeks before the office closes for Christmas and New Year's always creep slowly by, but this year even moreso. I have nothing—zero—nada—zilch—no work to do at all. Everything is on hold until the new year. Everyone is packing in their time off right at the end of the year, so even if there were something here to do, no one would be here to hand it off to. The December Doldrums: They seem to have happened earlier this year than ever.

I left "work" on Friday completely devoid of energy. I vaguely thought about not decorating the house for Christmas at all this year, even though I love decorating my little goth tree. I wandered through a relatively sedate Bed Bath and Beyond to pick up a gift item, felt a little better. Enough so that I got my elf on and put the Death Rock Angel back up to her rightful place. This year's addition to the tree are a half dozen tiny rubber bats, to go with the black rats and glow-in-the-dark spiders. Who says I don't have the spirit of the season?

Look: it's Alucard, The Retarded Gothic Elf.

Well, from then on, my attitude changed 180 degrees. I went shopping at Flax (easy to do; I can get lost in there for hours.) We hit holiday parties. Once I got the Boyfriend out of bed I was a slavedriver. We got nearly half of our remaining shopping done. (Mostly for his family; I still have my family and friends to buy gifts for.) When I got home last night, though I was pretty exhausted I at least made a massive list of things I have to do before we fly to DC for Christmas.

Of course, today I am back at work and have no motivation to do anything besides
surf the Web. Ain't that just the way? Sigh. Somebody wake me up at five...

02:20 PM PST (link)