Twilight Zone and Amazing Grace
Today started out innocently enough. I had planned to go in to work early, Manic Monday, my catch up day after the weekend, but I didn’t get up as early as I had planned (probably because I couldn’t find my alarm clock last night...where do these things go?!). Then I entered the usual period of lost time, left the house later than I had wanted to but still decided to go to McDonald’s for iced coffee for me and a couple friends, got in line and waited behind a couple that ordered one of everything on the menu, finally ordered 2 vanilla and 1 caramel iced coffee... they were out of caramel... then realized that they were also out of vanilla, whatever... I’ll take whatever you’ve got (not quite as bad as the time I stopped at Arby’s for a roast beef sandwich and was told that they were out of roast beef!), by the time all was said and done, I was NOT early to work, I clocked in 5 minutes late. That’s typical.
After that, I slipped through some kind of cosmic wormhole and entered what, in my world, can only be described as the Twilight Zone. It was Monday morning, yet there were none of the “usual issues” for me to deal with in my department, everything was clean and all the things that needed to be done, were done! I had time to catch up on some things that I have been trying to get to for ages. They gave me callbacks on athletic shoes, which are generally a time consuming pain in the neck. I had none of the shoes in stock, so the callbacks were instantly completed. Customers were polite! They said PLEASE and THANK YOU (geez...they even spoke English!) I was able to fix the problems that people were having on the kiosk. My first two customers, a man with a broken ankle and a woman with some kind of foot issues, asking for recommendations, walked away HAPPY in record time... I was able to show them exactly what the wanted on the first try and actually had their sizes in stock (no small miracle!), AND they didn’t question the prices! Then I had a visit from my friend Susan (thruthelookingglass) and was able to stand and chat for way too long because my work was under control. We had lots of laughs, made some plans and decided what kind of people we did NOT want to be when we get old (important stuff like that...along with her recommendations for watching a talking hamster interview which I still must do before I go to bed). Finally, a little bit after 2:00 I put my lunch in the microwave and went back out on the floor for a few minutes while it cooked and saw an elderly lady at customer service and I knew right away it was a shoe problem and I knew it was going to be a doozy, so I thought I had better step in and put off my lunch a little bit longer. I thought this one was going to be a MAJOR problem. This poor woman had cancer, her feet and ankles were terribly swollen from medication, she had a wedding to go to and she had absolutely no shoes that she could get on her feet. She was wearing mens slippers at the time. So we walked back to the shoe department and once again, the shoe gods were with me and I miraculously found shoes that she liked and could get on her feet and could walk in and could wear to a wedding. And then this really cool old woman, with the absolute best attitude, said to me that she would like to try to find some kind of gems that she could attach to the shoes to dress them up and I know that there are antique shoe clips like she described (Which God knows I probably have mixed in with a box of buttons somewhere) but I have not seen them in stores in years... and then she said to me...”at a flea market, you can get old earrings that would be perfect for this.” Yes, this old woman was my soul mate. Imagine that! Who knew? I asked her when the wedding is (late July) and I told her that if she couldn’t find what she wanted to come back and see me and I will find a way to make those shoes sparkle for her. (and I will. I will start working on them this week, just in case she does come back.) When she left, she gave me a hug and a kiss and told me that I had made her day, and she loved me. When does that happen? Wow. It gets better. On the way out, she asked for the manager and told him that he was lucky to have me (he knows, I tell him so...that he is lucky to have me and my entire shoe team) and that he better be good to me or she will be will be back to take care of him. The people in customer service told me that. haha. And later the manager came back and told me himself. Her name was Grace.... Amazing Grace. I hope I’ll see her again. Finally ate lunch. Stayed at work an extra hour and a half to cover someone else’s shift and it was smooth sailing the whole way.
Went home, just in time to go to Puppy Kindergarten with Dayna and Meeko, and sometime during this hour I returned through that same cosmic wormhole, reentering the world that I am more accustomed to, as I sat in this class, receiving text message updates from KTE307 about the USA World Cup game that I was so disappointed to be missing, while I watched a peeing and pooping fiasco, started by Meeko, in which every dog in class except for one had an accident. The poor instructor tried to work through this, but no one was listening.... they were too busy passing around the roll of paper towels and the mop and running in and out with wads of pee soaked paper towels. Then it was puppy playtime, where she put up plastic gates to separate the smaller dogs from the larger dogs and Meeko, curious about what was going on where the smaller dogs were, put his paws up on this gate, collapsing the entire length of it, a small Jack Russell escaped the gated area, and a cat suddenly appeared from another room and was very quickly scooped up by the instructor, while everyone scrambled to try to get the gate back up. Yes, I was back again...this was more what I was used to. It was nice while it lasted, that visit to the Twilight Zone, or parallel universe, or wherever I had traveled to. I liked it there. It was a happy, comfortable place.
For a happy ending, Dayna and I laughed all the way home and made it home to see about the last half hour of a completely amazing and super exciting American World Cup victory!! Totally awesome. I liked this day. May I have another, please?
Twilight Zone and Amazing Grace
Today started out innocently enough. I had planned to go in to work early, Manic Monday, my catch up day after the weekend, but I didn’t get up as early as I had planned (probably because I couldn’t find my alarm clock last night...where do these things go?!). Then I entered the usual period of lost time, left the house later than I had wanted to but still decided to go to McDonald’s for iced coffee for me and a couple friends, got in line and waited behind a couple that ordered one of everything on the menu, finally ordered 2 vanilla and 1 caramel iced coffee... they were out of caramel... then realized that they were also out of vanilla, whatever... I’ll take whatever you’ve got (not quite as bad as the time I stopped at Arby’s for a roast beef sandwich and was told that they were out of roast beef!), by the time all was said and done, I was NOT early to work, I clocked in 5 minutes late. That’s typical.
After that, I slipped through some kind of cosmic wormhole and entered what, in my world, can only be described as the Twilight Zone. It was Monday morning, yet there were none of the “usual issues” for me to deal with in my department, everything was clean and all the things that needed to be done, were done! I had time to catch up on some things that I have been trying to get to for ages. They gave me callbacks on athletic shoes, which are generally a time consuming pain in the neck. I had none of the shoes in stock, so the callbacks were instantly completed. Customers were polite! They said PLEASE and THANK YOU (geez...they even spoke English!) I was able to fix the problems that people were having on the kiosk. My first two customers, a man with a broken ankle and a woman with some kind of foot issues, asking for recommendations, walked away HAPPY in record time... I was able to show them exactly what the wanted on the first try and actually had their sizes in stock (no small miracle!), AND they didn’t question the prices! Then I had a visit from my friend Susan (thruthelookingglass) and was able to stand and chat for way too long because my work was under control. We had lots of laughs, made some plans and decided what kind of people we did NOT want to be when we get old (important stuff like that...along with her recommendations for watching a talking hamster interview which I still must do before I go to bed). Finally, a little bit after 2:00 I put my lunch in the microwave and went back out on the floor for a few minutes while it cooked and saw an elderly lady at customer service and I knew right away it was a shoe problem and I knew it was going to be a doozy, so I thought I had better step in and put off my lunch a little bit longer. I thought this one was going to be a MAJOR problem. This poor woman had cancer, her feet and ankles were terribly swollen from medication, she had a wedding to go to and she had absolutely no shoes that she could get on her feet. She was wearing mens slippers at the time. So we walked back to the shoe department and once again, the shoe gods were with me and I miraculously found shoes that she liked and could get on her feet and could walk in and could wear to a wedding. And then this really cool old woman, with the absolute best attitude, said to me that she would like to try to find some kind of gems that she could attach to the shoes to dress them up and I know that there are antique shoe clips like she described (Which God knows I probably have mixed in with a box of buttons somewhere) but I have not seen them in stores in years... and then she said to me...”at a flea market, you can get old earrings that would be perfect for this.” Yes, this old woman was my soul mate. Imagine that! Who knew? I asked her when the wedding is (late July) and I told her that if she couldn’t find what she wanted to come back and see me and I will find a way to make those shoes sparkle for her. (and I will. I will start working on them this week, just in case she does come back.) When she left, she gave me a hug and a kiss and told me that I had made her day, and she loved me. When does that happen? Wow. It gets better. On the way out, she asked for the manager and told him that he was lucky to have me (he knows, I tell him so...that he is lucky to have me and my entire shoe team) and that he better be good to me or she will be will be back to take care of him. The people in customer service told me that. haha. And later the manager came back and told me himself. Her name was Grace.... Amazing Grace. I hope I’ll see her again. Finally ate lunch. Stayed at work an extra hour and a half to cover someone else’s shift and it was smooth sailing the whole way.
Went home, just in time to go to Puppy Kindergarten with Dayna and Meeko, and sometime during this hour I returned through that same cosmic wormhole, reentering the world that I am more accustomed to, as I sat in this class, receiving text message updates from KTE307 about the USA World Cup game that I was so disappointed to be missing, while I watched a peeing and pooping fiasco, started by Meeko, in which every dog in class except for one had an accident. The poor instructor tried to work through this, but no one was listening.... they were too busy passing around the roll of paper towels and the mop and running in and out with wads of pee soaked paper towels. Then it was puppy playtime, where she put up plastic gates to separate the smaller dogs from the larger dogs and Meeko, curious about what was going on where the smaller dogs were, put his paws up on this gate, collapsing the entire length of it, a small Jack Russell escaped the gated area, and a cat suddenly appeared from another room and was very quickly scooped up by the instructor, while everyone scrambled to try to get the gate back up. Yes, I was back again...this was more what I was used to. It was nice while it lasted, that visit to the Twilight Zone, or parallel universe, or wherever I had traveled to. I liked it there. It was a happy, comfortable place.
For a happy ending, Dayna and I laughed all the way home and made it home to see about the last half hour of a completely amazing and super exciting American World Cup victory!! Totally awesome. I liked this day. May I have another, please?