Bonus

Crazy Cat Lady did come in tonight. She was still miffed at me for my giggles the last time she was in. She hardly spoke to me at all. But she brought herself to ask if I was sure I'd rung up her fabric correctly.

That's the thing about CCL. She's always paranoid that we're trying to cheat her. The last time she was in, that I was there, was actually a return visit to check up on whether the night shift clerk had written down her fabric purchase correctly on the frequent buyers club card . . . Alice, (who she has compared to Mother Theresa), was helping another customer and said she'd write a note to herself to check it out . . she wasn't sure that Alice would remember so she had me write a note to remind Alice about HER note . . . well, about twenty minutes later she came sneaking in . . . tried to slip past the register without me seeing her, and I turned to another co-worker and giggled, I bet you anything she's going over to check up on Alice!

Well, joke was on me--she caught me and came over and asked me what I was whispering about! Ooops!

Luckily just that day there had been an article about her in the paper:
http://journalstar.com/articles/2008/12/29/news/local/doc4958398b8e1f3932205029.txt#cancel
so I thought I was pretty smooth when I said that I was just pointing out to my friend that she's the one the story was about.

She didn't buy it, and has been giving me the cold shoulder ever since.

Oh darn. No more stories about her cat, no more standing beside her "helping" her pick out fabrics for cat pillows (when no matter what I thought, my opinion was WRONG.)

Loads of Memorial Day Flowers

Today we got in about twenty coffin sized boxes of Memorial Day Flowers: wreaths, crosses with sprays, "pillows" that say things like mother, father, son, beloved . . . it was pretty intense opening all those boxes and getting them all priced and on display.

The most memorable customer today was a super sweet young woman . . . 18? 19? who came in with two kids, a boy and a girl, both wearing thick glasses, both probably pre-K. They spent their time choosing candy, they came up to pay, she brought out her credit card, and when I rang it through it came up "Card Lost or Stolen". Shoot! Turns out she just got a new card but was still carrying the old one, and she didn't have any other money on her . . . if I would've had $5 in my pocket I would've bought the candy for them.

Mardi Gras

Tuesday.

A very large man comes in to the store. Asks for Mardi Gras beads. I point him to the display of purple, green and gold beads. He looks for a minute then turns to me: "Don't you have any that are a little less, um, feminine?"

I was floored. I tried to wrap my mind around it then I had to ask. "I don't know--what exactly makes the difference between feminine beads and masculine beads? As far as I know, these would work for either gender."

He bought them.

Memories of Childhood

I had a dream last night that my brothers and I were eating lunch at the Dumb Diner. It's a goofy dream I have repeatedly. I think it has something to do with being in Talmage, the town where our parents had a service station, and eating at the Surly Burgers Cafe, our pet name for the local restaurant/bar. It was a special place where the woman who owned it AND was the head cook, was often over-inebriated. One famous day we ordered the specials off the chalk board and she turned to us and said "What do you think this is, a restaurant?" Meanwhile at the Dumb Diner, which exists only in my dreams, the woman offered us meatloaf. It was the special. An hour later we confronted her about when it might be ready. She thought about 8pm. I told her "That's a fucking load of crap" and we all laughed and ordered more beer . . .

Good times.