"For Now..."

[a customer approaches the counter with an item in his hands]

me: Is that going to be all for you today?

customer: For now.


"For now"??????? Dude, if you're going to buy something else, or if you think you might buy something else, then save us all some time and and wait to buy everything at once. Please.

"It's Portland."

I rang up a man today, and when I told him his total he gave me his credit card and said, "It's Portland."

Anyone want to guess what he meant by that?

Curling Ribbon

Today I was wrapping a present and we didn't have enough ribbon. I quickly curled some more. One of my co-workers complimented me on my ribbon-curling skill. He said something like, "It's amazing how easily you do that!"

I know he was being nice, but all I could think was: What kind of an idiot can't curl ribbon??

Quitters' Hall of Fame (part three)

My last Hall-of-Famer quit work just days ago.

He'd been working at the store for a month or so, and I was already having problems with him. He was irresponsible, lazy, and -- bizarrely enough -- arrogant. He was 23, but our part-time high school student referred to him as a "kid". (She also said -- somewhat affectionately, I might add -- that he was "a baby" who "whined a lot".)

I was often short-tempered with him, since I don't have much patience for arrogant newbies who won't let me teach them how to do their job, and he quickly grew to dislike (and fear) me.

On Friday he took a very long break, came back, and went into the break room. He gathered up all his things, handed his keys to the employee who happened to be on her break, and mumbled something about having "some personal issues" he needed to work out. He then went up to my second-least-favorite employee (who's basically an older version of the quitter), shook his hand, thanked him for "not being rude", said goodbye, and walked to the door. When he got to the door, he turned around and called out my name. I heard him and assumed he needed me for something. (I didn't yet know about the stuff that had already happened. We pieced the whole story together after he left.) I went to find him, and was surprised to see him standing at the front door with his backpack on. He called out to me, "[mamurd], I just wanted to tell you it's a wonderful world." I was totally confused, so I said, "Ummm, thanks?" He said goodbye, and walked out the door.

We all assumed that during his long break he was talking to the bosses. The next day, though, a new schedule was posted and he was still on it! He never even told them he quit. (Like I said: irresponsible.)

The whole thing is completely bizarre. I'm curious to see what happens tomorrow, which is his next day to work. It's my day off, so I'm going to call in to see what happens!

Quitters' Hall of Fame (part two)

When I worked at the book store, we had a girl who worked with us for a month or two. Then, one day (if I recall correctly, it was Christmas Eve), she didn't show up. She called a few hours later to say that she wasn't going to be able to come in.

That was the last time we heard from her.

A few weeks later we started getting phone calls from people looking for her. We assumed they were creditors, hoping to find her at her last place of employment. We didn't have anything to tell them. She just dropped off the face of the Earth!

Quitters' Hall of Fame (part one)

When most people quit their jobs, they give two weeks notice in writing. Every once in a while, however, someone quits in a weird and bizarre way. Here's one of my favorites:


I used to work at a book store. One day we had a new employee. Everything seemed to be going fine, and after a few hours I sent her on her break. Five minutes before she was scheduled to return, she called the store. She told me that she wasn't coming back! She claimed it was because she needed to be paid twice a month (instead of once a month), but I suspect she thought that working at a book store meant that she would be able to sit around and read. Once she discovered that she was actually going to have to work, she decided to quit. I asked her if she could at least come back and finish the day (since she and I were the only ones scheduled to close that night) but she declined.

A Happy Ending Epilogue

They never came and picked up the glasses! Weird.

A Happy Ending

On Sunday I was helping a woman pick out some items. She had her two sons with her. One was a teenager; the other was around eight. After I had helped her, she told me that her younger son had lost his glasses. She told me she was going to look around herself, and that she was going to go back to the other place they'd been that afternoon, but in case she didn't find them, she asked if I could keep and eye out for them. She gave me her name and the name of her hotel, and told me that she was going to be there until the next day.

Around 2:30 Monday afternoon, as I was coming back from my break, my co-worker said, "Hey, [mamurd], guess what I found?" And ta-da! She held up the kid's glasses. She had found them in a completely random spot, and only saw them because she was re-arranging a display! I dug out the name of the hotel, looked it up in the phone book, and dialed. I didn't really expect to get in touch with the woman, though, because it was so late in the day. I figured that they would have checked out by then. My co-worker lamented that we didn't think to get her address so that we could mail the glasses to her.

To my surprise, the hotel desk clerk transferred me to the woman's room. I talked to her older son and he told me that they were about to leave! They promised to come by the store after they'd checked out of the hotel.

It was so nice to have a happy ending to the story!

Book Store Tales

I worked at a book store for four and a half years. Today's Retail comic strip takes place in a book store.

I wish I could say this was an exaggeration.

Spin Top

I recently saw a great set of badly translated instructions. Ready?


-The spin top are rotating around and flashing the light,
-Then relax the top on the flat surface to keep the turn it automatically
-Use the hand to hold the spin top holding and keeping the top axle in touching on surface at 45 degree angle then draw the curve.


These instructions were so bad that, even with a picture on the instruction sheet and the top in my hand, I still couldn't figure out how to make it work!