Don't Hoveround Here No More...

Tom Cruise makes it seems so easy for the slightly more aged folk among us to maneuver in motorized wheelchairs. What Mr. Jerry Maguire didn't think of is that these elderly speed racers really put the pedal to the metal instead of doing fancy choreographed turns in wide open spaces. These geriatric speed demons must think their in a Nascar race to the grave... or the early bird special... or, my favorite, they just like to play mall walker bowling. Several times we have had senior citizens race through the store on these motorized wheelchairs of doom... and we need to set up a speed trap to catch these senior speeders. The other day (I unfortunately did not witness this) a woman came racing through the store on her motorized scooter, of course, made the corner a little too wide and knocked over a mannequin that was SITTING ON A PLATFORM. The little speed demon didn't even flinch as she raced away from the scene of the crime. We can not let hit and runs like this happen anymore. Innocent mannequins are being taken out one by one because they do not have to take a driver's test to use the hoveround. Once they are able to do fancy synchronized... er, hovering? then they can have the key to their little race car.

There was another incident over the summer when Gretchen Wilson was signing autographs in front of the store. A rather flamboyantly dressed lady came through sporting a visor, a brightly colored shirt and reflective pants just in case she decided to take the scooter out on the road at night. Oh, and a fanny pack and a small dog in a dress to complete the ensemble. A dog. In a dress. In the mall. I felt very bad for the dog not only because it was wearing a dress, but because he had to run to keep up with Speed Racer. I'm actually quite surprised that he didn't get run over.

Speaking of dogs and clothing- they can also help you decide which sweater to buy. Or at least Paris Hilton could. The nonhuman Paris Hilton. Well, the dog Paris Hilton... I suppose I should be more specific- the one who can't speak.... I guess that describes the person-ish one too, but the Paris Hilton I met looked more like this:

Complete with sweater. And, once again, this dog was in the mall. Being held by its owner, who was asking what it thought about sweaters. I really wish we can have just one camera at the register to take pictures of some of the people that come through that store. Like the man on the segway. Or the woman that walks through with her dogs in a baby carriage. Or the elderly speed demons... but we'd need a pretty good camera to be able to get a clear photo of them.

have yourself a very geeky Christmas...

(I love my ghetto Lost tree)

I finally had a break from the seventh circle of hell to ascend back up to the first circle... family time at Christmas. I have to say that I love my family, I really do, but sometimes they give the Griswolds a run for their money at Christmastime.

My dad, the fearless leader of the small trio that is our section of the vast Leonard family, does enjoy to get into the Christmas spirit. Unfortunately, he waits until Christmas Eve to really show it- before that he is one of the many disgruntled folks at the mall, except he takes it out on the other shoppers. There is a Dollar Store at the mall and that is always his first stop. He buys the longest thing of wrapping paper that he can find and pretends he's a Jedi, taking the Empire on one Stormtrooper... err, Christmas shopper at a time. After an exhausting day of wandering around the mall, then settling on calling me to find a "few extra things" for my mother, he is never in the mood to decorate the house. So most of it, including the Christmas tree is done on Christmas Eve.

Now, the backstory to the Leonard family Christmas tree is a rather long and drawn out one. Ever since I can remember, we have gotten a live tree. And ever since I can remember, I am terribly allergic. My parents think that I will build up a resistance to it every year, but I'm pretty sure for that resilience against the evil pine to stay in my system they would have to leave oh tannenbaum up in the living room all year round. This would be fine with my mom, who is one of those people who will watch any Christmas movie any time of the year. This year she decided that the Hallmark Movie Channel was the destination for her (last year it was Lifetime... I'm not sure which is worse). I suggested that she go to the store and read the actual cards, but I wasn't sure if they would give away spoilers in their one simple tagline. She seemed to take some offense to this and I once again wonder how a cinema major was spawned from this woman. Then my father makes a reference to a "Fringe event" at the dinner table and I am the only one that laughs and it makes so much more sense. It also made sense when my dad defended me for watching Criminal Minds on Christmas Eve when my mom said it wasn't in the Christmas spirit. Then after my mom yelled at me for watching a show about killers, my dad accidentally decapitated Jolly Ol' St. Nick himself. Mom was very angry.

For my mom, Christmas is one of the holiest times of the year so we go to church. I do enjoy the ceremony of the whole thing and it certainly looks pretty, but being solemn just ain't my thang. And sometimes things just happen that warrant a chuckle or two. Like last year at the Easter vigil mass when all is silent and the church is almost completely dark, with a few faces illuminated by the light of candles. Then out of the darkness, a small man appears and proceeds to the pulpit and begins the reading... in the style of Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles. My parents forgot to forewarn me that the visiting priest was Asian. So I might have let out a few guffaws and tried to cover it up with coughing, but it wasn't too embarrassing. This Christmas my mom wasn't taking any chances and demoted me to the children's mass on Christmas Eve. This didn't work though because it seemed to have brought out my inner child when the priest held up the Baby Jesus and I exclaimed "Simba!" My mom elbowed me, but this time I already had my reply of "But everything the light touches is his!" And now I think I got cemented as the "special" girl in church.

I have many more family Christmas stories, but I will leave you with an image of peace and goodwill towards men and proof that I will never get the ornaments my mother is holding hostage for grandchildren...

Merry Christmas! Shitter was full.

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog... and got made into a leather jacket?

This conversation occurs between the minutes of 11:35 pm and 11:50 pm on the evening of the retail nightmare before Christmas...

Customer: I need some help.

Fearless retail associate: What can I do?

Customer: Can you call Monroeville? I really need this jacket- the safety of the country depends on it...

Beep (boom) Beep (boom) Beep (boom)... the seconds count down on the clock

(Break for commercials cause boring stuff happens here)

Beep (boom) Beep (boom) Beep (boom)

Fearless retail associate: Hi, I have a customer here looking for a faux (pronounced like "foe") leather jacket...

Customer: No! No! It's FOX it's made of foxes...

The fearless retail associate prays for the countdown clock to appear and signal another commercial break, but, alas, this is not the world of 24 (yes, I started watching another tv show). As with all awkward and annoying situations, I pray for a commercial break or a flashback or a bus to come out of nowhere and run this lady down. But, no, I am stuck staring at the customer blankly because it was almost midnight and I gave up fighting or even trying to come up with a comeback. And lord knows I don't want to teach her the error of her ways... mostly because there are just so many. One. Faux= fake, imitation. Which I actually would prefer the "pleather" and not go around sporting a dead cow. Two- leather out of a fox? Don't they have fur? And are kind of small to make a $60 coat out of? Who is this woman? Did Cruella DeVille who took a wrong turn and ended up starring The Fox and the Hound instead? The poor woman did not get her jacket. Even though she could have, but she lost patience and wandered away. Maybe she saw something shiny.

Customers are bringing the spirt of Halloween to Christmas... but much scarier.

Today, a customer brought me a little bit of the Halloween spirit into this dismal holiday....

It was a dark and (snow) stormy day. I petulantly stand around the register dealing with the swarm of last minute shoppers who enjoy to insult me at every chance they get. I suppose my clearly overinflated ego could use a bashing every now and then, but I would prefer if it were not from someone who just likes to deliver the low blows and not actually participate in a battle of wits. Just calling me an idiot or a bitch isn't cutting it anymore. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me... I'll use them to hurt you. Anyway, the phone rings and while I am usually rather hesitant to answer, it was the lesser of two evils today...

"Hello, MCN misses department"

"Hi. I'm calling from inside your store and I can't find the catalog department. I had a few questions..."

I recoiled in fear... and astonishment. The call was coming from inside the store! I wish it was a deranged serial killer with mommy and daddy issues (as long as it wasn't Jack Shepard or Kate Austen). What scared me even more was that someone took the time to look up the phone number for the store and listen to all the recording to push our extension instead of just walking up and asking someone or, God forbid, look at the signs. The customer then continued on to complain about how she is not receiving coupons at her house. I can say though, I was very sympathetic towards her as I transferred her to another extension and hung up on her.

A whole slew of monsters enjoy parading through the store these days. My favorites are still the zombies. Both in monster movies (and now TV!) and real life. And by real life zombies I mean my dearly beloved customers who gather together to stagger around mindlessly grabbing whatever sweater that looks most like braaaains and get a gift receipt because that ugly ass thing is getting returned the day after Christmas. I gave up asking if they need gift receipts and just hit the button anyway. They'll thank me for it later. If only I had my weapon of choice, a razor scooter so I could bludgeon them and scoot away.

Ghosts are rather similar to the zombies, but they have really given up and surrendered to the despair of the holiday. They wander around lifelessly with a look of anguish, hoping to find the one item that will bring them peace... Of course they never find it.

The vampires are the ones who are angry because the store has been sucked dry of decent looking clothes... and it is clearly my fault. I am the one who bought every single sweater they could possibly want in every store in the district.

Frankenstein/ Frankenstein's monster is pretty sweet. I've only had a few of those where they lumber about throwing together a mishmash of things that create a glorious hodgepodge of gifts that somehow come...alive.

I have only a few more days left to defeat these monsters. I'll be like the horror movie heroine.... except I will be sure to not trip and fall in the middle of the big chase scene. I'll have my razor scooter to get away.

MCN, After Dark

Oh, I love the holiday hours. I am usually a night owl, but burning up in retail hell is not what I would like to be doing till midnight. Especially since I have the whole Cavy turning back into a pumpkin problem and the Christmas shopping zombies might take offense to the Halloween display during this oh-so-holy season. Unfortunately, the Christmas zombies are drawn to the magic of the mall after hours. These are the zombies who have been "turned" for a very long time and are basically an unrecognizable shell of a human being. One even sprouted fur and feathers... or at least her boots, coat, and vest did. I'm sure PETA approved that outfit. It was more of a loss for the Muppets though since it appeared as if Animal gave his life so the girl could look, er, stylish in those boots.

I wish Animal would have survived his encounter with Cruella DeVille. He would have been a better conversationalist and quite possibly could have comprehended my explanation of the coupons and why the mall doors have to close when the mall does. Tonight I was so bombarded with the world's stupidest questions, I started to look around for the hidden camera tv crew to beg them to take me out of this hellhole (seriously, I will be coffee bitch for anyone). The mall door questions usually went something like this...

Idiot: Why is the door closed?

Me: Because the mall is closed.

Idiot: So we have to go outside to go shopping in the other stores?

Me: No. The other stores are closed.

Idiot: Well how do I get out?

Me: Through the outside doors.

Idiot: How do I get back into the mall?

Me: You knock three times. Three shall be the number of times you knock. No more, no less. The number of times you knock shall be three and the number of the knocking shall be three. Then you jump up and hold it for five seconds and Falcor will swoop down, carry you to the roof and then you have to take the stairs from there.

Or we have the panic stricken masses....

Moron: Am I going to be trapped in here?

Me: No. We don't want you to be trapped in here, the outside doors will still be open.

Moron: How do I get out into the mall?

Me: You can't. The door's closed.

Moron: So we're trapped.

Me: No. You can get outside.

Moron: How do I get to my car though?

Me: ...are you parked inside the mall?

(That one is almost verbatim)

Then we had the people who are very confused by coupons. Sometimes you can combine coupons and sometimes you can't. That's just how the world works. People do not seem to completely understand this and stare at me blankly when I try to explain it or whenever I feel like being nice and divide up coupons so they actually save more money.Then they start to ask me about the rules of the coupon... which, big shock, are actually printed on the coupon. Then, like the five year old they are in their mind, inevitably they start asking "Why?" "Well, how come?" Because Mr. Freaking Nickel raised from the dead and gave us the 10 commandments of coupons that were written by God himself and we must abide by these rules.

Seriously. Can't these people just go to a bar? But, then again, they don't seem to have the brain cells to spare.

Happy Xmas, Boxes are Upstairs (If you want them)

In honor of the anniversary of John Lennon's death, I feel to mention how his Christmas song, Happy Xmas (War is Over), has brought joy to the hearts of the legions of Satan's angels shopping in good old' MCN. Their hearts grew three sizes that day... so they are now visible to the naked eye.

This year, the Dark Lord Sauron gave up on that whole one ring to rule them all thing and sent his army of Christmas shoppers in pursuit of the elusive Christmas gift boxes. And they are not happy if these boxes are not conveniently placed at the register. A lady orc (yes, they've let those loose now), walked up to my counter and was somewhat pleasant enough during the small talk of the transaction. Sometimes grunting is just better than normal conversation. Then at the end she requested gift boxes. I politely directed her to the catalog desk, where the friendly human gatekeeper will assist her. This is when she started baring her teeth and went into battle mode. However, in the middle of her five minute plus rant about how difficult it is to ride a freaking escalator, a drunken hobbit lady walked up behind her and began singing the Christmas song that was playing, which just happened to be "Happy Xmas (War is Over)." A magical thing happened. John Lennon was right- the great battle for the Middle Earth shopping mall was over. The orc and hobbit joined together in song like it was karaoke night at the Prancing Pony and Gandalf himself was there to judge. As the song predicted, the war indeed was over... or was it? After their merry medley, they turned to me and said how nice it was to hear Christmas music. I responded with my own battle cry of "It's not nice if you've heard it since October." They realized they must ban together to defeat their new common enemy- me. A great verbal battle was about to begin, I prepped myself with Aragorn's speech at the Black Gates in my head, but then realized that it did not apply to this situation at all... especially since I am a woman from the East and Eowyn kinda stole my thunder as a woman warrior. But then the drunken hobbit in her haze remembered a new, much stronger and powerful foe- Forever 21. I looked down at my shirt and realized I got the cami at Forever 21, but decided it was best to remain silent. Apparently, their selection of music is not appropriate for the holiday celebrating the birth of uh... what's his name again? Santa?

Have yourself a merry little hipster...

I am not a hipster. Big surprise. I'm also not one of those people who hate them. Honestly, I'm not exactly sure what separates them from the "scene" and "emo" kids. What can I say? I guess I'm just not cool enough to run with the hep cats. Anyway, the point of that rant was that yesterday I was surrounded by smelly people. Both at work and after. During my day at the local hellhole, I was battered left and right by the original hipsters... the kind who have broken a hip. For some reason, the old people who usually look at me with a look of disdain decided that I must have reminded them of their granddaughter and they were drawn to me like a shuffleboard in the middle of Miami. I don't know if it's the denture cream, hard tac candy or the smell of impending death, but all of the old people smelt horrible. Maybe it was because they were truly rotten to the core. None of them were the sweet little old grandma... so it was definitely not the hard tac candy stench. Only one of them is specifically worth mentioning. Because she was on speed. Or at least that's what it seemed like. She ran up to my register all concerned because she had to exchange a sweater and she found the only one that wasn't damaged. OK. We've had these sweaters since June, they are bound to get snagged. Then she started shuffling things around on the counter and exclaimed "Oh my God! Where's my purse?!" Then, I'm pretty sure she ripped out a chunk of hair and went running towards the fitting room, where she reputedly ran down the hallway and knocked on every single door looking for her purse. The fitting room attendant finally found it underneath a pile of clothes that the cracked out customer left in there. Did she thank the fitting room attendant? No. She thanked God because (s)He apparently looked down at this poor customer who didn't know how to hang up clothes, smiled, and protected her purse from the evil doings of other MCN customers by hiding it in the mess that she left in the fitting room. Right. Anyway, the customer ran back to the register, even more spastic now and practically hyperventilating. Now, I've left my purse places before and I've been quite concerned. Not overdramatic and creating a scene for amused spectators in the line and one very scared associate. Everything that could happen to make the transaction last longer did. Her card wouldn't slide, she didn't understand when I asked for her card so I could try to slide it at the register, she hit cancel instead of complete, etc. Then to top off the whole thing, she was on her way to the doctors' office. Couldn't she have stopped after? And been very, very medicated. I thought it couldn't get any better, but then I picked up the sweater and it reeked of cats and was completely covered in cat hair. Thank God I'm more of a crazy, nerdy dog lady.

Then I encountered my smelly people of the evening- AKA the youngster hipsters. My friends invited me to tag along to a gallery crawl, which sometimes amuse me. Never this much though. As soon as we walked in, my friend turned to me and said "Do you see?" I was rather confused, scanned the crowd and said "No." Then I realized why I didn't see. I wasn't looking down. It was a magical moment when the crowd parted in slow motion and I heard the magical sound of the opening to David Bowie's "As the World Falls Down" from the motion picture "Labyrinth." Standing the middle of the crowd was the littlest hipster. I wanted to kidnap him and present him to boss lady (Chelsea Handler) who just happened to be performing in town tonight. Apparently thats illegal or something. But I figured a hipster nugget would be better than a bottle of Belvedere. However, did manage to snap a picture of the little guy for the world to see. The mental portrait I have will always remain in my memory.

The littlest hipster. He could be in a children's book... or a children's movie. Like the motion picture "Labyrinth" starring David Bowie...

Here come douchebags, here come douchbags right down fucktard lane...

So if the sounds of Rosemary's baby evilly singing Christmas tunes isn't enough to turn customers to the dark side, the icy dandruff has started falling from the sky. Bah humbug to you too, snow! Now, I know there are those (who should be committed) who love the tiny ice demons that dance down from the sky, but I am still having 'Nam style flashbacks from the Snowpacolypse of last year. Apparently Pittsburgh drivers are also having these flashbacks... while driving. Just because it's snowing doesn't mean you should neglect to check the other lane before you merge. I miss the old days of snow when I sat in the passenger seat and during the night I could pretend like we were actually flying through space.

Anywho (don 't you hate people that say that?), I made it to work unscathed and even made it through the first 3 hours with one of my stricter managers. So, of course, after he left I slacked off in plain sight and stood at the register for much longer than was necessary. Good thing I did or else I would have missed the fucktards that decided to play with perfume and make up in Sephora... and these dumbasses were 40 year old men who didn't grow out of their frat boy phase. They're pretty much my favorite people to just sit back and watch. Seriously. I want a zoo of people and they would be the main exhibit. Then every Friday and Saturday night I would set up a bar where spectators could view a mating ritual between them and the overly tan bleach blonde women. God, I love stereotyping people. Anyway, the un-funny version of Old School decided that would be super awesome to throw a bottle of perfume to see what would happen. Guess, what. It was glass. It broke. Congratulations! You learned physics. Time to do a keg stand. Now, the dude claimed he dropped it or it "fell out of his hand." Well, I call bullshit. It was apparent from the perfume splatter pattern (that's right, I watch Dexter) that it was thrown. But, ok, if this was his story, fine, accidents happen so normal people would apologize. However,the Assholeius Douchebags decide to stand in the aisle and loudly argue about who actually broke the bottle and then loudly carry on about bullshitius maximus. I prayed that these men are not raising offspring... just still listening to Offspring. But, nope, there is a chance that one of these fine gents did or will procreate. One of them came back into the store and collected his woman who apparently was shopping in Sephora. And, yes, she was an overly tan blonde bimbo.... I hope their kid is a nerd.