Christmas Tidings

I saw this when I was visiting Tsofah's blog this morning. It should become a classic. (Note: replaced it with another version after the original disappeared from YouTube. This one works for now (12/22).)



And in other Christmas news, I had to stop at the mall today. Yes, the Saturday before Christmas!

My daughter's friend (she's my friend too, but by saying she's my daughter's friend, it places her age better), the one who had boyfriend trouble (they broke up this summer) and dog trouble, is staying with us now. She had been at her mom's house, but that wasn't working out very well, so I let her move back in here.

She has a job at one of the shoe stores in the mall, and she was headed for the bus stop to go to work, when she called me to say she missed the bus. She got caught at a red light, and the bus left the stop just as the light turned green for her. So I drove over to pick her up and take her to work. On the way to the bus stop, I was behind another bus (not hers), and a car-carrier semi was in the lane next to me. Normally I can squeeze around a stopped bus, but the car-carrier decided to move over into my lane right at that moment, and I decided stopping was the better part of valor. He pulled back into his own lane just before he side-swiped me.

At our mall, one of the anchor stores has been empty for a few years. It used to be a May Company that became a Robinsons-May that got bought out by Macy's that already had two stores (one for men's clothes and housewares, and the other for women's clothes) in our mall, so the store became a gaping hole at one end of the mall, surrounded by oodles of empty parking. The bottom floor of that store was used as a furniture store for a while, but they went out of business. Now it's used every October as a Halloween costume store that blows away on the wind as soon as soon as November comes around.

Today, there was a line to get into the mall parking entrance closest to the shoe store, which took me past the empty department store, and people were even parked around that store. I crept my way to the drop-off place, let our friend out, and headed over to the exit where I had come in. But it was clear that I wouldn't get out that way anytime soon. I cut across some empty parking spots at the far end of the empty store's parking area, and drove back along the mall to the other (occupied) end. It took a while, with frequent stops to let shoppers cross ahead of me, but I made it to the road that leads away from the mall and back to the freeway home.

I had meant to go to the shoe store with my friend to find out my work hours for this week that starts tomorrow. Yes, I will be temporarily gainfully employed at the shoe store through the first week of January, or until they don't need me anymore.

I'd already met my friend's boss, and we liked each other just fine. A few weeks ago, when they had three openings there (it helps to have an inside source), I applied and filled out their computer "no wrong answer" test that has questions like, "Have you ever stolen anything?" and, "Have you ever taken your employer's property home because they don't pay you enough, so you deserve it?" Ummm.... Let me think...

But there was a computer glitch that very week that lost the notification from headquarters to the store about the results of my "no wrong answer" test, so I didn't get hired then.

But my friend kept telling her boss she should hire me and that I indeed wanted the job, so yesterday I got a call from the boss informing me that someone flaked out on them and would I be interested? Yes, I would. So she got my identifying information and re-entered it, so that this morning my "no wrong answer" test results would be sent back to the store. She needed to know my previous plans for the week, so she knew when to schedule me. I stopped at the store yesterday (parking nightmare, but not as bad as today) and went over my plans with her(church Sunday morning, haircut Monday evening). I told her I wanted Christmas off, and she said they were closed, and I said, "I know."

So that's why I even vaguely considered looking for a parking spot today: because I prefer face-to-face conversations to phone calls. But given the parking situation, I decided to just go home and wait for her to call me. Which she did. I'll be working about 30 - 35 hours this week making actual income.

Who'da thought? Me, the mall, and Christmas week, all at the same time. Amazing.