It was a quiet Monday, relatively speaking, as we had a 2000-piece truck to unload. My job: Flow Team/Logistics/dollar section zone captain. [CUE: BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS]
I had finished most everything, save a couple carts of Ready-to-Wear and the Men's rack. It had been going well, as it was our first Monday without school-aged kids running through the store, messing with stuff.
Our store is gearing up for the Winter/Holiday season. [CUE: JINGLE BELLS] We're just setting Halloween, and it seems as if most of the store is on clearance. We've had a rather short summer for our area, and the temperatures have dropped abruptly from the high nineties to the low seventies. We've been filling our stock room (yes, we have a Magical Back Room) with ice melt, snow shovels and ski bibs. The weather forecast shows that here, in the inland Pacific Northwest, we will be getting some record snows and low temperatures. We're all scrambling to eliminate thousands of summer clearance items: 5000 one day, 8,000 the next, and so on.
Meanwhile,Superman and Lois Lane, a crotchety post-menopausal* lady [CUE: IN AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY DRAWING ROOM by RAYMOND SCOTT**], I'll call her Granny McGrumperson, finds it necessary to inform me about this. It's really nice when crusties tell you stuff you already know, don't you agree?
"Are you guys closing or something?"
"Eh? Uh, no, not that I know of," I said, hesitantly. "Oh, well, maybe it's because the kids are all at school," I said, assuming she was talking about the quietness of the place.
Granny McGrumperson "catbutts" me. [CUE: CAT MEOW FX]
"The shelves are so empty," she states, looking at me expectantly.
I never know what to say in time for people to not become upset with me. "Oh...uh...I see." [CUE: PRICE IS RIGHT "FAILURE" STING] I wonder what my face looks like when I'm thinking. I fear it looks, well, not incredibly...smart.
I went back to my watches.
With a huff, or maybe an imagined huff, or maybe a flourish, Granny McGrumperson heads towards the exit, empty handed.
My thoughts made it to my mouth, within 60 seconds (a record). "Maybe I should have asked her if she was looking for something and didn't find it," I said to my coworker, who, in typical fashion, grunted cutely, and continued with her work. [CUE: END STING: ORGAN]
But maybe, just maybe, what she was looking for was here. all along.
/Scene.
*As a pre-menopausal lady, I know from where this Grump originates. Probably.
If it were me.
But it wasn't.
** I write radio plays.
I had finished most everything, save a couple carts of Ready-to-Wear and the Men's rack. It had been going well, as it was our first Monday without school-aged kids running through the store, messing with stuff.
Our store is gearing up for the Winter/Holiday season. [CUE: JINGLE BELLS] We're just setting Halloween, and it seems as if most of the store is on clearance. We've had a rather short summer for our area, and the temperatures have dropped abruptly from the high nineties to the low seventies. We've been filling our stock room (yes, we have a Magical Back Room) with ice melt, snow shovels and ski bibs. The weather forecast shows that here, in the inland Pacific Northwest, we will be getting some record snows and low temperatures. We're all scrambling to eliminate thousands of summer clearance items: 5000 one day, 8,000 the next, and so on.
Meanwhile,
"Are you guys closing or something?"

Granny McGrumperson "catbutts" me. [CUE: CAT MEOW FX]
"The shelves are so empty," she states, looking at me expectantly.
I never know what to say in time for people to not become upset with me. "Oh...uh...I see." [CUE: PRICE IS RIGHT "FAILURE" STING] I wonder what my face looks like when I'm thinking. I fear it looks, well, not incredibly...smart.
I went back to my watches.
With a huff, or maybe an imagined huff, or maybe a flourish, Granny McGrumperson heads towards the exit, empty handed.
My thoughts made it to my mouth, within 60 seconds (a record). "Maybe I should have asked her if she was looking for something and didn't find it," I said to my coworker, who, in typical fashion, grunted cutely, and continued with her work. [CUE: END STING: ORGAN]
But maybe, just maybe, what she was looking for was here. all along.
/Scene.
*As a pre-menopausal lady, I know from where this Grump originates. Probably.
If it were me.
But it wasn't.
** I write radio plays.

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