Tales from the Trenches: Bloggable customers and other stuff.

My day began with a bus load of high school art kids.  They were there at open, but thankfully, Sherri texted me on Friday to give me a heads up.  I had the store up and ready a few minutes ahead of time.  They were okay, but their volume.  Oh my. 

We had someone come in and she walked around and around trying to find things.  I couldn't really figure her pattern out, but let her know I could help her if she needed.  She made a decent pile on the counter, had me go out to pull 3 nearly $50.00 garden stakes (that's a piece) out for her, then we tallied up her bill.  I was so happy for her when I found out that she had won a very large gift certificate to our store from a local radio station.  She left with more than $80.00 in credit still in hand. 

We had someone who seemed to be highly medicated flying about and picking things out at a frightningly fast pace.  Turns out that she was just received an extremely substantial sum from a trust, and she left over $900.00 of it with us.  Very nice. 

It was the day of the drunks.  We had several customers come in absolutely wreaking of alcohol.  The one was the friendly drunk asking all sorts of questions that people normally wouldn't.  The others were some ladies getting ready to hop on a plane.  They weren't friendly though.  Nosiree.  They were snotty and ignored me when I spoke to them.  Yug.

I had a woman who came in to return an item for less than twenty dollars and had a receipt in hand for the purchase.  It was purchased at the very beginning of the year.  I told her that I couldn't return it and that we have a 30 day return policy, she asked, "Well I can exchange it, right?"  "Um, no.  I'm sorry.  This was purchased 5 1/2 months ago."  "But I just received it.  All I want to do is to exchange it."  I told her that I couldn't, she could go speak with the manager and she did.  She came back later with a credit in hand.  (ARGH!  I would love support in my backing policy!)  Target has a 90 day return and they are not apologetic about it.  I don't blame them.  We're not Target, but perhaps we should practice their return policy. 

I have a co-worker who has taken to putting up posters of famous young men in our stock area upstairs.  As you head up the stairs, there is an obnoxiously large poster of Justin Bieber.  It is there more as a joke, but I can't wait until it goes away-- if that ever happens.  I went to our staff bathroom, turned around and found a picture of Robert Pattinson on the wall.  That was it.  I moved it.  I absolutely refuse to have Robert staring at me as I pee.  When I talked to the other person on staff at our store about it, her response was, "You are only here for three days.  I don't see why it should matter."  I feel like I'm living in the land of Teen Beat Magazine.  Wow.  JUST MAKE IT GO AWAY!

K- had a walking field trip down the road (maybe 4  or 5 blocks) to the local ice cream store.  I had one of the room mothers call me yesterday flipping out because it was supposed to be cold and raining and how is there any way that the kids will get back in time to eat and, and, and . . .  I e-mailed K-'s teacher who was kind enough to e-mail me back details to phone the mom with.  In her e-mail, she stated that she was fine if that particular parent opted out, but it turns out that both she and her husband came along.  Mrs. S- is on door duty this week and I admit that when I talked to her this morning about it, I told her that I fear that the problem was that we had was a "city kid thing." All she could do was nod and laugh. I told her that we walked this winter when it was 17 degrees and we survived it just fine!  K- reports that they were fine and upon reaching the school grounds, one of her classmates got ill.  Seems that ice cream, cold, a drizzle and a hoof and haul up a rather large hill was more than her digestive tract could take.  M- was fine and remained at school for the day.  Sad that M- got ill, but glad that it wasn't my kid for once! 

I found wet laundry in the laundry bucket.  I admit that not feeling well has left me a few days on laundry holiday.  I found Hubs' wet shirt from when he mowed the lawn on Saturday at the bottom of the bucket.  Y'all know how nasty that can get?  Thank goodness I caught it in time and I reminded him of the no-wet-laundry-in-the-bucket-please rule and he was not terribly receptive.  He thinks I was picking.  I really wasn't.  I just don't want moldy or musty laundry.  Argh.

Friday's high temperature was 82.  Today's high temperature was 46.  I have plants to hit the dirt, but it's been so wet here that I can't get the beds weeded to get the plants in.  Hubs barely got the lawn mowed on Saturday-- just four days after he had mowed it previously.  It is so wet that people can't plant seeds for the gardens.  :raising my hand here:  I was going to drop some green bean seeds into the ground yesterday, but the directions were specific about if it was cold and wet, the bean seeds would only just sit and rot.  No point in wasting.  I'm hoping to get a bit of gardening done at the end of the week.  In the meantime, I have a pile of plants on my back porch ready to hit the dirt.

All right.  I've complained and vented.  It's what my Tuesday blog day is for.  Thanks for the listening ear.

Smiles in my day:
-  MIL's birthday is tomorrow and I made her a lovely lemon pound bundt cake with a blueberry lemon glaze.  I don't like blueberry, but the glaze was delicious.  I'm excited to try the cake tomorrow.
-  L- is graduating from medical school!  L- is my husband's cousin's wife.  She is a wonderful person, is a fantastic doctor and has chosen to be an emergency department physician.  We've been invited to her graduation picnic celebration.  Now, if I can just think of an appropriate gift.  I'm thinking a gift certificate to buy herself something.  Any suggestions?  L- and B- have two young daughters, are very family oriented, are surrounded by an immense amount of family support and want for nothing.  Maybe I should see if they have a picnic basket.  That might be a good idea.  Still, belt out the ideas if you have them.

Have a great day!