First off, it was raining. Buckets. Guess what that means? Yeah, that's right. I had to ride my bike to work in the rain. (No bus on Sundays.) It was also, of course, rather cold, so my little hands and feet froze on the way. Plus, I forgot to pack part of my lunch, and realized when I got there that I could not make up for it by buying something from the café because I'd also neglected to bring my purse (usually needing it only to get on the bus, so I hadn't brought it in order to avoid getting it soggy). So, I walked in the door of my workplace with wet knees (due to bad coverage of poncho), looking like a cold, hungry, drowned rat. If rats have long blonde hair and pissed-off expressions on their faces.
So. Sour mood increased because I passed the children's section on the way to clock in and it was an absolute wreck. I hadn't been allowed to clean it the day before because I had to try to straighten up the REST of the store (please!), and before that I had two days off. Even considering all that, it was ridiculous. It looked like someone had gone around kicking the bottom two shelves of every single section in Kids'. Literally! There were books and crap lying in every single aisle, on the floor, and the little train bench was stacked high with books, mostly from other sections in the store (because, ya know, the parents get something to read while their children are happily trashing my section, and then they don't feel compelled to put their shit back because, well, they have people to do that).
There is a book with a big attractive rubbery hand puppet in it. It is by Tim Weare. If the kids' section is completely clean and tidy, and only a couple things are out of place, one of them will be this book. Children always, ALWAYS take it out--how do they find it?? They take it out and they refuse to put it back where they found it, usually leaving it open on a shelf somewhere, or just on the floor since that's easier. Jeaux says at his store kids are inexplicably attracted to the same book.
Weirdly enough, when I surveyed the carnage, the Tim Weare book was one of the only books that hadn't moved.
Irony.
So, I set to cleaning. I did a great job. I cleaned it up and it took me two and a half hours. About halfway through the task, a woman stopped me and asked for my help. She was holding a Dear America book and wanted to know if it was a true story. I told her it wasn't, at which point she complained her daughter likes to read about real people, so I took her to kids' biography. On the way she commented on how my section looked like it had exploded, and when I said kids must have rampaged yesterday, she encouragingly said, "Oh, it's such a shame," and some other comment about how it's shocking that people don't know how to behave. It shocked me, therefore, to find that after she'd finished browsing kids' biography, she'd just thrown her Dear America book horizontally on top of the row of biographies. Now either she did this on purpose, with a "they have people to do this" attitude, or else she did it without thinking about it, just absentmindedly placing it down and forgetting about it. Neither of these things, in my opinion, are acceptable behavior. ARE YOU A CHILD?? Gods, it's frustrating. I spent a few moments being so offended by the hypocrisy that I had tears in my eyes, and then I moved on.
I began guarding Kids' like a solider, after it was clean. It was not going to be messed up dammit! But I had to stop patrolling for a short while because I had to help a slew of people that decided they needed help at Customer Service. After the rush was over, I checked back in Kids' . . . and almost threw up.
Right behind the sticker display on the back of the train benches, there was a hearty mess. A LARGE pile, I'm talking heaping, of Caillou books was sitting there, swept off of the bottom shelf, obviously by a small child. The offending pile was decorated with packages of stickers by the fistful, and then the most horrid part: It was also interspersed with crackers, in various states of being eaten and crumbled.
So, I began to pick up the books, and was intrigued to find that under everything else, there was one tiny size two baby shoe. Ah-hah, I thought.
I took that sucker and jammed it way down in the customer service trash can. There was my vindication, I thought, now your obviously brand-new cute little shoe is your Mess Tax; you sacrifice it for your privilege to make a mess in MY section. Thank you, come again.
I just knew she'd either call or come back in, looking for the shoe, and I was right. I got a phone call from the woman, describing her lost shoe, and I put her on hold and pretended to look for it while spending a healthy couple of minutes laughing my ass off. Then I got back on the line and sincerely said, "Oh, no, ma'am, I've found nothing." She left me her name and phone number to contact her if I do find it, which is nice because now if I ever feel like doing more prank calls I have a victim to try it on.
I briefly considered retrieving the shoe and calling her to alert her I'd found it . . . in six months, when the child would definitely be too big to wear it.
Let me interject here.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Now. Back to my day.
When I went to the register to do Neil's break, I saw a Rice Krispy Treat sitting on the bullnose of the train, on a plate, just sitting. I figured it might be abandoned, but I just ignored it and did the cash register lunch break. Then it was time for MY break. I passed the thing again on my way to the back room. And then after lunch was over, I came back out and it was STILL THERE.
So, I ate it.
Notes:
Evil nasty wench. Which, by the way, is one of the many reasons I love you. :) [Meggie]
Lol! Golly what a way to de-stress! ^_^; ~Toraneko~
*snort* Poor, poor Kid's Section garbage woman :P That sucks, but hey, the world spins as long as hypocrites still pollute this planet. Rice Krispies are nummy. I need to learn how to make them.... [katqueen]