bloodyrosemccoy | Dec. 10th, 2006

Human Rights Day
National Children's Memorial Day and Worldwide Candle Lighting
Nobel Peace Prize Day
UN Human Rights Day
Birthday - Emily Dickinson (poet)
Birthday - Thomas Gallaudet (educator)
Admission Day (Mississippi)
Constitution Day (Thailand)

Back to work at Classic Fashion Store, where I quickly found myself dressing mannequins.

I also found that I’m a little rusty with the selling mentality. I still have on my Eugene College Kid mode, which when translated into selling is like saying, “Dude, buy this!” Now I have to bring people water and be all polite to them while chatting and keep an eye on them so I know when they need me to start ’em up a fitting room or burp their baby or donate a kidney. But I really like the clothes, so that’s good. Hell, I even made a sale of nearly a thousand bucks. Granted, it was to my aunt, who doesn’t take much persuading, but she did look positively smashing in the stuff she bought.

I’m a little apprehensive for the Christmas shoppers though, because to tell you the truth, I’m terrified of Christmas shoppers. When I’m just out browsing, I am stunned at how unbelievably sour so many of them look—unless they look positively frantic. It’s not like they’re a bunch of unredeemed Scrooges—they’re all out participating in the holiday, after all. When you look at them, however, you see that it’s the same way crazy sports parents are participating in their kids’ after-school pastimes: they are taking a thing that should be fun and easygoing and turning it into hell for themselves and for everyone who has to put up with them.

And it’s an infinite loop. I’m sure they all hate Christmas shopping because there are a bunch of jerks out there, so they turn into jerks themselves and perpetuate the problem. Then there’s that whole problem with Santa Claus. (Kids: don’t read this part!) You convince some kid that Santa Claus is real and has infinite power to bring them shit, and then your kid writes to Santa that he wants the latest Nintendo thingum and so you go out to the store and battle with six hundred other parents for the last one in the state,* and all you get is a couple of teeth knocked out so you call around and then at 9:34 pm on December 22 you find one in Cheyenne and have to call your sick old mother and ask her to get her ass across town to pick it up and ship it overnight mail.** If you don’t, your kid will be Disappointed!

I love the idea of Santa Claus, but maybe we should leave him as an interesting legend instead of a web of deceit and lies. Might save us all some trouble.

Fortunately, the people at my store mostly don’t need to worry about Santa, so with any luck they’ll be less worried. Although the equally mythic Mother In Law might be something to fear in and of itself.

God help us all.

*You ever wonder who gets these things? Obviously, somebody has to be buying them, because they’re out, but the ony people who seem to have them are one or two insufferably smug people who bought them from Japan or something, and all the rest of your friends are trying to claw your eyes out so they can get the last one. It makes me think that those stories about bastards who buy whole crates of the Hot Toy and scalp them need to be investigated further.

**Not that this has ever happened to anybody I know.