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First post, whoo hoo! Been a long time lurker, though.
In light of the upcoming holidays, I thought I'd regale you all with some tales from the land of holiday giftwrapping. BE WARNED: this is of EPIC PROPORTIONS
Every year around the holidays, I volunteer for the local humane society at the annual holiday giftwrap. I work as much as I possibly can, probably because I love it and all the craziness that comes with it. However, there are some memorable instances that stand out in my brain as being SUCK-TASTIC.
Here I am, at the sweet, young, tender age of 15 (I’m older and wiser now, alas). Working the giftwrap, like I do every year. And here comes this gentleman, walking up with his friend. He looks kinda sketch, but I’m all like, whatever, if he’s gonna pay up then who am I to judge him? I smile at him and ask if he would like anything giftwrapped. “Uh, sure”, he says, then plunks down a small shopping bag from Spencer’s, picks out his giftwrap, and wanders off to do more shopping. So little innocent me opens this bag, this mystical, magical bag of wonders. And inside, I find a small box, with what appears to be a picture of a lime green ring on it. “Huh?” I wonder.
And then, I flip the box over. At this point, I am suddenly introduced to something I wasn’t aware of existed before : A vibrating ring. Not one for your finger, either, but one you can apparently use to “HEIGHTEN HER PLEASURE!!11!!!”. No, on the back of this box were explicit anatomical directions on how to use this device. I start laughing so hard that all my friends come over to see what is so gosh darn funny and all, and then they start cracking up, and it is all great fun. I mean, I understand that maybe you wanna spice it up with your girl and all, but please, don’t make me touch your sex toys, mkay?
This happens several times every year. This particular instance stood out in my mind:
Some fellow came up to have his gift wrapped. After I had finished, I placed it on the table and looked at him expectantly.
Me: That will be $2.50, sir.
Him: *Blank look*
Me: ….
Him: You mean…. I have to pay?
Yes, yes you great stupid oaf, you have to pay. Or did you not in fact notice the banners hanging all over the place screaming “HUMANE SOCIETY FUNDRAISER!”? Or perhaps did you miss the EIGHT FOOT TALL SIGN DIRECTLY BEHIND ME that states all the prices based on the size of the package? Oh you did, did you? Well then. Well then indeed.
Him: *grumble grumble grumble* Well that seems like an awful lot.
Me: Well sir, all the money we raise goes directly to helping the Humane Society provide for its homeless dogs and cats, and we really appreciate your donation. *sunny, sunny, smily smile*
Him: *grumble grumble* Fine.
So the man pays up, FINALLY. But honestly, there is a bigass sign behind me that actually has examples of the box sizes taped to it with the prices written on it in BIG BOLD NUMBERS. You have no excuse.
So here I am, at a slow point, when I see some old guy wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his head and toting a chunky wooden cane walk over to our station.
Me: I’ll be with you in a minute, sir!
Me: Do you need any presents wrapped today, sir?
Old Guy: *mutters something unintelligible, doesn’t look up so I can’t even see his face, chucks present at me*
Me: Uh, okay, well, do you have a particular wrapping paper you would like? We have reindeer and snowflakes and-
Old Guy: I’M BLIND!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!
He raises his head and now I see he’s wearing super dark aviators. Oh boy.
Me: *embarrassed* Oh, I’m so sorry. Well, do you have any idea of what kind of wrapping paper you like?
OG: DOES IT REALLY MATTER?
Okay, jerk. It sucks that you’re blind, but don’t take your anger issues out on me. I had the urge to wrap it really badly, cause after all he is BLIND!!!!!!11!!, but that's not what baby Jesus and Santa Claus would want, is it?
COWORKERS
Jeez Louise. I hate my coworkers/co-volunteers (?), or some of them anyway. Rawr.
We get these people in from Target, who are like, community volunteers or something. Lots of them are great, but there are a few dumbasses who like to sit around and chat and pop gum during rush hours. Seriously, each of our six stations has a line at least five people long, and two stations are totally empty, and there are these two stupid girls sitting on a table, talking about what they had for lunch. I snap at them, “Don’t you have somebody to help?” They get all pissy but they get off their asses and start wrapping.
A girl from my highschool was working the giftwrap with me, along with a bunch of my friends. I’m doing my thing, being the queen of wrapping, when all of a sudden this really sweet girl comes up to me and says that she needs to talk with me. I’m all like, “Okay, shoot.” She tells me that this other girl has been taking tips from customers. I SEE RED. Our school EXPLICITLY states that there can be ABSOLUTELY NO COMPENSATION for any volunteer work done for school credit. Hence the whole ‘volunteer’ term. I could buy a new laptop with all the tips I’ve collected, but I don’t, because they get put in the cash box, just like all the other money you collect. So we confront her, and she puts it back, thank goodness. She should be ashamed of herself!
Then, there are the guys from my old highschool. I wonder why they even bother to show up. It’s slow, but I’m helping a customer, so I tell the three that are just hanging out to go help the man and his two sons that have a sweater or something to wrap. After I’m done, I turn around, and lo, what do mine eyes behold? Three teenage boys, sweating and struggling over a single rectangular box, with the wrapping job botched so badly I fear to ask the customer to pay us at all. I offer to rewrap it, which he gratefully accepts. I shoot the useless fellows a glare and tell them to make bows or something and at least PRETEND to be useful.
I shall end on a funny note. Not a sucky customer, really, just hilarious!
So I’m chilling, wrapping up some stuff, when this woman and a man approach me. The woman shoved a teapot box at me.
Me: Okay then, is there any particular paper you want me to wrap this in?
Woman: What is the ugliest paper you have?
Me: Excuse me?
Woman: This is for my mother-in-law, and I don’t want it to look good.
(the guy is cracking up).
Well, this year we accepted donations from the community of wrapping paper. BIG MISTAKE. We mostly got rolls of wrapping paper that were mostly used, and had been in somebody’s attic since the 70’s. There was this really, really hideous wrapping paper. It was red, with postage stamp outlines, and in each postage stamp there was a obscenely brightly colored Santa doing something that seemed ‘vacation-y’ (think Santa in orange swim trunks, in a lime green track suit, etc). The whole thing was made up of some of the worst colors I’ve ever had the displeasure to look upon. Worst of all, the roll had been printed of center, so that there were two images when there were only supposed to be one, printed almost on top of each other but missing the mark by /this/ much, which gave the entire roll of paper the illusion of vibrating. We put it out of site so that customers would not have to look upon such horror.
Me: I know exactly what you need, ma’am.
So I wrap it up, and hand it to her.
Woman: Do you have any bows that would NOT match?
Me: Well, we have this shiny purple bow left over from last year.
Woman: Perfect.
She tipped me a twenty
The customer is always right, and often hilariously nuts!
Sorry for the length. I've been keeping some of these stories bottled up for YEARS!
In light of the upcoming holidays, I thought I'd regale you all with some tales from the land of holiday giftwrapping. BE WARNED: this is of EPIC PROPORTIONS
Every year around the holidays, I volunteer for the local humane society at the annual holiday giftwrap. I work as much as I possibly can, probably because I love it and all the craziness that comes with it. However, there are some memorable instances that stand out in my brain as being SUCK-TASTIC.
Here I am, at the sweet, young, tender age of 15 (I’m older and wiser now, alas). Working the giftwrap, like I do every year. And here comes this gentleman, walking up with his friend. He looks kinda sketch, but I’m all like, whatever, if he’s gonna pay up then who am I to judge him? I smile at him and ask if he would like anything giftwrapped. “Uh, sure”, he says, then plunks down a small shopping bag from Spencer’s, picks out his giftwrap, and wanders off to do more shopping. So little innocent me opens this bag, this mystical, magical bag of wonders. And inside, I find a small box, with what appears to be a picture of a lime green ring on it. “Huh?” I wonder.
And then, I flip the box over. At this point, I am suddenly introduced to something I wasn’t aware of existed before : A vibrating ring. Not one for your finger, either, but one you can apparently use to “HEIGHTEN HER PLEASURE!!11!!!”. No, on the back of this box were explicit anatomical directions on how to use this device. I start laughing so hard that all my friends come over to see what is so gosh darn funny and all, and then they start cracking up, and it is all great fun. I mean, I understand that maybe you wanna spice it up with your girl and all, but please, don’t make me touch your sex toys, mkay?
This happens several times every year. This particular instance stood out in my mind:
Some fellow came up to have his gift wrapped. After I had finished, I placed it on the table and looked at him expectantly.
Me: That will be $2.50, sir.
Him: *Blank look*
Me: ….
Him: You mean…. I have to pay?
Yes, yes you great stupid oaf, you have to pay. Or did you not in fact notice the banners hanging all over the place screaming “HUMANE SOCIETY FUNDRAISER!”? Or perhaps did you miss the EIGHT FOOT TALL SIGN DIRECTLY BEHIND ME that states all the prices based on the size of the package? Oh you did, did you? Well then. Well then indeed.Him: *grumble grumble grumble* Well that seems like an awful lot.
Me: Well sir, all the money we raise goes directly to helping the Humane Society provide for its homeless dogs and cats, and we really appreciate your donation. *sunny, sunny, smily smile*
Him: *grumble grumble* Fine.
So the man pays up, FINALLY. But honestly, there is a bigass sign behind me that actually has examples of the box sizes taped to it with the prices written on it in BIG BOLD NUMBERS. You have no excuse.
So here I am, at a slow point, when I see some old guy wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his head and toting a chunky wooden cane walk over to our station.
Me: I’ll be with you in a minute, sir!
Me: Do you need any presents wrapped today, sir?
Old Guy: *mutters something unintelligible, doesn’t look up so I can’t even see his face, chucks present at me*
Me: Uh, okay, well, do you have a particular wrapping paper you would like? We have reindeer and snowflakes and-
Old Guy: I’M BLIND!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!
He raises his head and now I see he’s wearing super dark aviators. Oh boy.
Me: *embarrassed* Oh, I’m so sorry. Well, do you have any idea of what kind of wrapping paper you like?
OG: DOES IT REALLY MATTER?
Okay, jerk. It sucks that you’re blind, but don’t take your anger issues out on me. I had the urge to wrap it really badly, cause after all he is BLIND!!!!!!11!!, but that's not what baby Jesus and Santa Claus would want, is it?
COWORKERS
Jeez Louise. I hate my coworkers/co-volunteers (?), or some of them anyway. Rawr.
We get these people in from Target, who are like, community volunteers or something. Lots of them are great, but there are a few dumbasses who like to sit around and chat and pop gum during rush hours. Seriously, each of our six stations has a line at least five people long, and two stations are totally empty, and there are these two stupid girls sitting on a table, talking about what they had for lunch. I snap at them, “Don’t you have somebody to help?” They get all pissy but they get off their asses and start wrapping.
A girl from my highschool was working the giftwrap with me, along with a bunch of my friends. I’m doing my thing, being the queen of wrapping, when all of a sudden this really sweet girl comes up to me and says that she needs to talk with me. I’m all like, “Okay, shoot.” She tells me that this other girl has been taking tips from customers. I SEE RED. Our school EXPLICITLY states that there can be ABSOLUTELY NO COMPENSATION for any volunteer work done for school credit. Hence the whole ‘volunteer’ term. I could buy a new laptop with all the tips I’ve collected, but I don’t, because they get put in the cash box, just like all the other money you collect. So we confront her, and she puts it back, thank goodness. She should be ashamed of herself!
Then, there are the guys from my old highschool. I wonder why they even bother to show up. It’s slow, but I’m helping a customer, so I tell the three that are just hanging out to go help the man and his two sons that have a sweater or something to wrap. After I’m done, I turn around, and lo, what do mine eyes behold? Three teenage boys, sweating and struggling over a single rectangular box, with the wrapping job botched so badly I fear to ask the customer to pay us at all. I offer to rewrap it, which he gratefully accepts. I shoot the useless fellows a glare and tell them to make bows or something and at least PRETEND to be useful.
I shall end on a funny note. Not a sucky customer, really, just hilarious!
So I’m chilling, wrapping up some stuff, when this woman and a man approach me. The woman shoved a teapot box at me.
Me: Okay then, is there any particular paper you want me to wrap this in?
Woman: What is the ugliest paper you have?
Me: Excuse me?
Woman: This is for my mother-in-law, and I don’t want it to look good.
(the guy is cracking up).
Well, this year we accepted donations from the community of wrapping paper. BIG MISTAKE. We mostly got rolls of wrapping paper that were mostly used, and had been in somebody’s attic since the 70’s. There was this really, really hideous wrapping paper. It was red, with postage stamp outlines, and in each postage stamp there was a obscenely brightly colored Santa doing something that seemed ‘vacation-y’ (think Santa in orange swim trunks, in a lime green track suit, etc). The whole thing was made up of some of the worst colors I’ve ever had the displeasure to look upon. Worst of all, the roll had been printed of center, so that there were two images when there were only supposed to be one, printed almost on top of each other but missing the mark by /this/ much, which gave the entire roll of paper the illusion of vibrating. We put it out of site so that customers would not have to look upon such horror.
Me: I know exactly what you need, ma’am.
So I wrap it up, and hand it to her.
Woman: Do you have any bows that would NOT match?
Me: Well, we have this shiny purple bow left over from last year.
Woman: Perfect.
She tipped me a twenty
The customer is always right, and often hilariously nuts!Sorry for the length. I've been keeping some of these stories bottled up for YEARS!
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