Martha Stewart is the devil.....

It's 5 minutes till closing. You can physically see the employees release the almighty sigh of relief. After a long and tedious two-day inventory, we are all a step away from retail death.

A petite women with long blonde pigtails races through the door like a platapus on cocaine. Every employee within a foot of the service desk, shoots visual daggers at the back of her head.

Now, skip ahead 10 minutes. The manager makes the announcement that the store is CLOSED. In my head, the overall message sounded something like, "Hey loser who is still in the store. Get the hell out before I release these starving workers on you. No, seriously, buy something or go..."

The lady marches up and promptly screams, "I'm here for the Mayor! She needs purple pillows! It's for the MAYOR!"

Skip ahead another 10 minutes where she is still frantically searching the store screaming something about the f-ing mayor and purple pillows. Yeah, we are being held against our will after closing, for purple pillows....20 minutes over, to be exact.

I have waaaaayyyy too many anger issues for this lady. I don't care if she's there for Barack Obama....why is she shopping for purple pillows at a low end crappy retail store??? We have one automatic door that is shattered because a lady in the electric wheelchair went the wrong way and slammed into it. Does that sound like a place the Mayor would shop?

The manager shakes her head and herds the cattle of a women to the checkouts and allows the employees to leave before they started throwing piles of crap at her.

I bet my whole paycheck this lady not only DIDN'T work for the mayor, but used those pillows in some drive-by pillow gang war. Martha Stewart being the fashionable godfather figure.

Mama, Don't let your babies grow up...to be assholes.

The day before Mother's Day. Blinded by foolishness, I had convinced myself that today would no worse then any other day. Apparently, 'Mother's Day' is code for "Treat your Cashiers like crap because you were too lazy to get your mom stuff ahead of time."

My register had been swamped the entire day. Breathing was becoming a thing of the past and my movements were almost robotic. A heavier set man walks through and buys the usual stuff for mama dearest. Flowers? Check. Cheesy Card? Check. Creepy Teddy Bear? Check.

He pays with a credit card. Luckily for me, all the debit card swipers machines have crashed and burned, so we are forced to hand scan them ourselves. The man pays with a credit card and because of some weird glitch, I have to imprint the card.

Everything goes through fine. I hand the man his receipt and am off to the next loser. Three transactions later, I see that the man is still lurking next to my register.

"Sir, Can I help you?"

"What are you trying to pull bitch?"

"Excuse me?"

"Listen, I may look like a fool, but I'm not. I know what your doing. I've already had my identity stolen once and I'm not going to let some C*** like you screw up my credit again. Consider yourself fired you dumb bitch!"

I look at the man in complete shock. First of all, I don't put up with being called anything. Secondly, had the store manager (the big dog, as we refer to her) not been at the service desk behind me...I might have smothered the man with a Joe Boxer pillow.

My register is completely in need of dollar bills, so I walk the 2 feet to get change and there he is. The asshole is trying to get the attention of the manager and when he sees me promptly says, "Nope, you're dismissed little lady. Go back to your register."

Later, the BIG DOG manager walks by me and inquires about the incident. She laughs when she gets my side.

"I could tell he was a loon the minute he walked up. Don't worry about it."

Why, yes! I was indeed stealing your identity sir. All my life, I've wanted to be a fat bald man with one tooth and a lazy eye. It's my dream, really. Damn you for ruining the American dream, you prick.

Oops! Did I drop that brick on your face?

I've only taken two steps into work, not even having the chance to clock in, and like a raging bull, the security guard wanna-be runs up to me.

"You see that girl in softlines with the polka-dotted dress? She, the old lady, and the three guys with her are being watched for shoplifting."

"And?"

" 'BOB' says you need to keep an eye on them and report what you see."

"Tell 'Bob' that I don't get paid enough to be a hero. Unless he's got a $5 bonus in his back pocket, I don't care what they steal."

The guy looks at me, shrugs, and just strolls away. Seriously? Like I've got that much time on my hands to play '007 at some crappy retail store.

2 hours later, Manager 'Bob' pages me over the intercom. I trudge up to service desk to find 5 (yes, 5) carts overflowing with stuff. Turns out, the people knew we were watching them and just to be good citizens, they decided to get $2200 worth of stuff and then have the check declined.

So who has to clean the mess up? Why, yes....the poor floor workers. Softlines had a buggy stacked as high as me with random clothes. They even took the time to put ALL the candles on the shelf in their shopping cart.

These are the people I wish serious karma. Really? $2200 worth the stuff and you pretend to be shocked at the declining of your check? Screw you. They were lucky it wasn't me that had to check out all their stuff. There really is no telling what kinda names I would come up with to call them.

Softlines 101

For the last month, I've been on a 'trial' in the softlines (women's, men's, infants clothes). I had been doing well, by my standards at least...which are incredible low. I have grown quite fond of the infants section. Not because it has cute little dresses or tinsy winsy lil booties...just cause it's the smallest department in my store. Yep, my standards are quite the mind blower.

Yesterday, I'm at the fitting room desk pretending to fold clothes, when this lady walks up. The next part all happens in what seemed to be a slow-mo Charlie Brown's teacher, A.D.D all fucked up moment. The lady mumbles a blur of nonsense and all I could concentrate on is that something was missing...but what? I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Then, it Chris Brown'd me. The lady had no tongue. Literally, it was just a stub. Shallow of me? Why, yes....yes it was. Don't even pretend like you wouldn't tilt your head and wonder....

I manage to catch the word 'bathroom' and promptly point her towards the back.

Damn creepy retail store in the middle of murder heights. One day, this will all catch up with me, but until then....I will just have to blog it.

Scanning your eyes out...one pupil at a time!

I hate my job. Truly, I do. I wish this job death. Friday the 13th, was indeed the shittiest day at my store. I was cursed out by one old fart and told I disgrace my family with my body 'defacement' by another.

The bad part is...there's no where else for me to go. I truly feel that my A.D.D won't allow me to work on the floor. I can't even shop without stopping a thousand times to look at things that are shiny/sparkly/glittery/metallic/etc. I think floor work will only bore me to tears.

What does that leave? Why, yes! Cashiering. In my store, this is known as 'punishment'. Anyone who does something bad, but not Donald Trump, "YOU'RE FIRED!" bad, they are sent to the cubicle of suffering A.K.A....the register. Most either quit or become nuns.

On top of everything, the new store rules are killing me. I can't pass gas without 'Bob' the manager, asking me how that affects the team...and remember kids, "There is no 'I' in 'Shut the Fuck Up You Dumb Ass!'"

*sigh*

I will hanger-whip the next customer who dares tell me to go to church because I have an eyebrow piercing. All you'll see is the zebra print of my uniform spider monkey over the desk and the blurring of a hanger.

*double sigh*

The whole Friday the 13th story later....for now, I need to watch something calming, like 'Little Miss Sunshine' or 'Cloverfield'.

-Cashier-

So much for "Respect Thy Neighbor"...

My store has recently decided to, yet again, take up donations for a local charity. I don't mind the actual idea of it....the problem lies in making the poor cashiers stop our entire routine to ask a question that 9 times outta 10 will be denied. It really throws us off. The register needs a routine. Otherwise, you're just floundering around with your head us off. A friend of mine is a waiter, and he tells me everyday that good waiter will get a routine and stick to it. Cashiering is the same way.

In these hard economic times, it is like asking for your first born. I love the grunts, the excuses, the glares, and most of all, the rants about money. Trust me...we no more enjoy asking then you enjoy hearing the pleas.

This time it was for March of Dimes. I did my usual routine. Managing to get several kind citizens, I felt like I had done my job. Until SHE showed up.

"Hello Ma'm! How are you?"

*Grunt*

*I silently scan her items* "Would you like to donate a dollar to the March of Dimes?"

Before I could finish my sentence this old, hateful women, released her walker....through her hands up in the air and screamed til she was blue in the face, "NOOOOOO MAAAAAAAA'M!!!!!"

It was so loud, that my manager ran from the back of the store to the front to see what the commotion was. My face contorted into a swirl of confusion and "Piss off lady!". I finally handed her her bags and watched her scoot away into the sunset.

It took me a good 5 minutes t0 fully digest what had just occured. Charity got me yelled at.

Life's great irony.

My Sticky...sticky shoes....

It's finally happened. I have a cold. I've managed the whole season to avoid the symptoms, but alas, I finally caught it.

Most of my shift went as smoothly as possible. In between customers, I popped cough drops and tried to get some fluids down.

A large man, wearing overalls that were 4 sizes too small with no shirt underneath, trudges to my line. Covering my mouth to shield unwanted floaters, I cough.

The man stops dead in his tracks and wide-eyed, stares at me with dismay.

"It's all clear, sir! I promise."

Like a deer caught in headlights, he keeps his eyes on me. Finally, he grunts and proclaims, "I'm not going through YOUR line. Your germ-y! You should be ashamed of yourself coming to work to give all these folks your germs!"

He waddles to the next line and refuses to take his eyes off of me until he is out the door.

Who knew my cold would turn out to be my blessing. Perhaps I should be like Pheobe off of 'Friends' and make some money off of it. (Remember that episode?)