free flowers

At The Shop we have planters in front of the store window, three with ivy topiaries growing in them and one with a tall, slender ficus tree struggling to survive. People tend to sit on the Ficus planter and leave various things in the dirt surrounding the tree's trunk; here are examples of items I find in the planters regularly: cigarettes, gum, toothpicks, coffee cups, straws, jewelry, candy and candy wrappers.



But, one day last week was my lucky day; instead of something disgusting, I found a lovely bouquet of flowers in the planter. They were still in the plastic wrapping but starting to wilt due to the unusually hot day(well, unusual for San Diego). After leaving them in the planter for several hours, I finally decided they needed a little drink so I put them in water and took them inside. They really perked up and once I took them home, and put them in a proper vase, they have proven to be a truly gorgeous arrangement of flowers.



For the first time ever I was delighted at what someone left in the planter!

The old fashioned way

So, we recently had a problem with our phone lines at the shop. The lines somehow came "undone" and had to be re-wired. I don't know what happened, but it's all very clear to the phone repair man and I didn't ask, so as not to annoy him. He was, in fact, very nice and the second guy who came out (due to confusion on the part of customer service) was just as friendly.

The whole point of this story is that for about half the day we got to use the old fashioned credit card sliding contraption, which was lots of fun. I must say, it was a big relief when we were able to go back to the quick and normal way of processing credit cards. But for a couple of hours there work was pure, novel fun.

my owner

So, the same grumpy British lady that gave me a hard time at Christmas came in the store today and started calling for help while I was on the phone with my all time favorite customer, only to ask me if my owners were in. I quickly assured her that my owners weren't in and wouldn't be in for the rest of the day. She proceeded to razz me for the rest of her unpleasant visit.

The kindness of strangers

I always complain about how rude and unhelpful people are, but then I find out that I, in fact, might need just a bit more help in life than others should be expected to give me. The other night, I left work, backed out of my parking spot, drove around a couple of corners, over a few bumps, stopped at a couple stop signs and while waiting at a stop light felt a slight bit of terror as a very nice, elderly man tapped on my car window to let me know that I "had a mess of bread on the trunk of my car." I thanked him profusely, grabbed the bread and headed on my way, amazed at my stupidness and thankful that there are very nice and observant people in the world.

I wanted to put her in my pocket....

and take her home with me.

She was so cute, the little girl, about my age, who came into the shop yesterday to buy an apron. Now, I love the aprons we carry. They are fantastically expensive($70-140) but fantastically well made(think double sided so two aprons in one, thick creamy cotton, fitted). So, when she came in to buy an apron I basically dropped any interest in other customers and focused on helping her pick out an apron. After all, one of my favorite things to do at work is try on the aprons. It was a fun day!

She was so cute people, so, so cute!

Why are some days such a struggle...

...while others are not?

Today I:
♥squashed grain moths and baby worms that were anxiously waiting to to grow into moths. We found them eating away at the "reindeer food"(really just a sack of wheat berries in a pretty red bag with bells on it)
♥got into a rather heated argument with some bitchy old british lady when I attempted to defend myself from her verbal abuse. She was horrid people, I tell you absolutely horrid. I would have gladly slapped her but she probably would have squashed me as she was shorter and wider than I.
♥had to track down the stuck up little blond high schooler who parked her golf cart behind my car, apparently for the evening with no intention of moving it.
♥unpacked some of the most idiotic christmas merchandise I've ever seen and in the process covered myself with cardboard dust and particles.
♥listened to the first Christmas album of the year and determined which songs I'll be skipping on that one.

I'm so not looking forward to the Holidays.

I might as well post...

since my plan to walk to the ferry/work have been brutally interupted by the rain. I staunchly planned to walk no matter what the weather was like. When I heard rain I still got up; I dressed in my silly little striped stockings and short pants(so i wouldn't have to endure wet pant cuff syndrome, and cause they're friggin adorable). I bundled up so I wouldn't get too wet but about 1/2 a block out I realized that the wind and the much harder-than-expected rain had totally defeated me. I would not make a very good seattlite. But in my little head I tell myself their rain isn't as meanacing and it wasn't this August but I am sure they have storms too. Of course that is the Only kind of rain San Diego gets, storm rain. So I'll catch up on the blog post I was going to do last week among that flurry of blog posts, speaking of storms, that was quite the little rain storm.

So, recently I've seen my fair share of crooks and creepies. Finally! I think I noticed someone shoplifting. I still don't know 100% for sure but I'm fairly sure I saw a rather snooty little girl(about my age) dressed in pointy black shoes and a bell skirt(she looked rather fashionable and well off) steal a pair of beer mug sunglasses. She stole them for her boyfriend! Wicked wicked girl! I think she had an older woman(her aunt?) helping her, wicked wicked woman! She distracted me while this little girl tucked the glasses into her bag but I didn't see her do it, I just noticed that there was one pair of glasses missing but I didn't know if she had set them down somewhere else until I went over to look after she left. I should have smacked her to the ground and made her confess, but I didn't. I'll just speak of her evilness for years to come.

The other crook who stole from the little shop was a crazy man. He bought a small item and when the other girl gave him his change(I didn't ring him up, I came to the register half way through the transaction) he fumbled through the money as though counting it and then claimed that she had given him a $1 instead of a $10. Well, we believed him and thought it was very odd, but promptly forgot the situation, even when he was being frisked and arrested on the tree directly outside the shop door. Yes, we are that stupid =) that naive! We just thought he was creepy. It was only when we were closing up that we realized that the missing $9 from the register meant that he lied to us. Such naive little girls we are.

It has rather shaken my trust in everybody, which I forget that I shouldn't do, trust everybody. I'm a silly silly little girl! easily duped by creepies and crooks at every turn in this evil evil world!

Shop Thoughts

So, for the past two weeks the shop has been fairly calm. Nice and relaxed. So no real crazies to contend with. Basically this is the time during which I get to sit around waiting for customers and listening to the music, if it can be called that. This is when I really start to notice the music and wonder if I would prefer the craziness caused by customers over the craziness caused by listening to Kenny G five times over in a day. Terrible terrible selection at the shop and so last year about this time I brought in some of my music that can slide under the shop appropriate music radar. This was great for the first year, now my three cds that met with approval are starting to wear on me. I realized (the processor came!!! yeah yeah yeah! the poor UPS man had to practically set the dogs on me to keep me from grabbing it from his arm, I tried twice and he shooed me away) that work music can not be personal music. They must be separate. In some situations it would work fine, but not in a place where the only decent music is what I've brought in and I play it over and over again in an attempt to avoid listening to piano musak of popular pop songs and terrible jazz and other such stuff. So now my approach is to just pick the worst of the shop music and play it to watch others suffer as well.

Other shop news. I'm not sure what kind of crazy vibes I'm giving out. I think people can sense certain things about me, such as: I hate wasting bags, I am an overbearing sales person and I love to act as everyone's personal information booth. Okay, only one of the above is correct.

I can't count the number of times people have, before the entire sales transaction is over, asked with some slight rude tones in their voice "can't you put that in a bag?" Usually I say "sure, of course you can have a bag" with notes of surprise in my voice, but occasionally I say "Oh, you want a bag for that? you don't want to walk down the street juggling all of your purchases?" and then I smile to show it's just a funny little joke and they are a complete idiot.

I guess I look like an arm twister, cause most of the time when I greet people who walk into the shop, they say "I'm just browsing" with an attitude that says "I can see it in your eyes, you want to sell me on something and I'm not interested." The thing is, all I ever want to say is "of course you're just browsing, what else is a shop for? That's the whole point of this shop existing is so that you can browse and then suddenly find something you want and buy it."

And I guess as a shop girl I'm supposed to eat at the terrible, overpriced restaurants near by so that I can tell tourists which are the better of a whole mess of evils. Usually I just tell people I don't eat in the area and then recommend some random place. It's very silly.

unexpected nerves

Yesterday I had this sudden case of nerves while I was working. One of my employers asked me to perform a task which I've done dozens of times over the course of working in the shop. Basically, four identical gift baskets had to be made up, and in an unprecedented show of faith in my abilities she asked me to make them. Now, when she isn't in the store I make these things all the time. It's usually fun, but this time I got nervous. I guess it was just with the weight of expectation (all presumed of course, based on former gift basket making sessions with her). I mean this task is easy but I suddenly developed shaking little arms and hands and I was obsessing over every little detail that I normally just take care of without thinking or blow off.

I was amazed at my response to such a situation. I know I get nervous easily, but this was just silly. By the third basket I was mostly back to normal.