SHUT UPPP

They say that working with kids is one of the most rewarding jobs out there. What they often forget to include is that those little ankle biters are exhausting. Over the past couple of days I've been exceptionally sleep-deprived thanks to the Big Test, some random late nights (For example, late last night I decided I wanted lemon pudding. We didn't have any in the house so I actually drove to HEB, bought milk and pudding, came home and made my dessert. I'm a fat kid at heart and I'm not even sorry.) and early mornings.

Today was weird anyway. My mom was visiting my grandma so I took over her classes (the perks of having a daughter who works in your district!). After the AWESOME televised morning announcements where we were informed that "macaroni and cheese with fish bits" was on the menu for lunch - I had the distinct honor of witnessing a very, very rough draft of some 4th graders' stage adaptation of a Roman myth. It was a wonderful mix of serious, adorable, silly, and of course WTF. They've got a week to turn their not-a-play into a play ready for the discerning entertainment tastes of second graders. My favorite part was when they were discussing things to add to it one kid said "It's for little kids so it should be funny and we should act crazy and trip randomly." Hey, Nickelodeon, I think there are some nine-year-olds in Central Texas who are on to your programming formula. Also I love that they consider the kids who are two years younger than them "little kids."

Then I took some 5th graders to the library, where only one of them actually needed to check out a book. Most of them just wandered around looking for the "funniest" titled books they could find. "This one's called Gay Neck Pidgeon!! Ahhh ha ha ha!" Ooook, weirdos. But I love them.

By the end of the day I had no energy and a room of six "gifted" third graders who were extremely excited by everything and not at all interested in staying on task. It was kind of like trying to organize a bunch of hamsters that had been injected with half their body weight of caffeine and then turned loose in a hamster amusement park before being brought in to a classroom and told to learn about geometry. As soon as I got two of them to focus, two more were ambling around the room "sharpening their pencils" (This is what 3rd graders do when they don't want to do their work. They walk slowly to the pencil sharpener where they take their time sharpening away, and then they walk back toward their table, making as many detours as possible. The whole process takes about five minutes and yes, it is an art.) or looking at things the other classes had done. I also discovered a previously-hidden talent I have where I am able to hold three conversations at once. Third graders apparently either don't notice or don't care if you're talking to two other people while they're having a conversation and they're too excited to wait until you're done so they just chat away!

By the time the bell rang I was beat! The elementary school kids definitely won today, I need a nap, and probably a good run or five. All in all though even the most exhausting days are freaking wonderful. Those kids are awesome. Hooray for public school!

- YES it really is possible to wait too long to order your bridesmaids' dresses. It's happened. And sometimes there is literally not a thing in the world we can do about it - the dresses do not exist and I cannot magically make them appear for you in time for the wedding. So please, when we say order in advance, order in advance. We're not just saying that to try and get you to pay for something today. There are brides getting married with mismatched bridesmaids or even a bridesmaid or two short because they didn't place their order soon enough.

- NO, I'm not going to write a description of your dress so that you can put it in your newspaper announcement. Funny story: a girl once asked me to do that and I was REALLY in a mood that day, apparently, and so I said "Well, what does your dress look like?" And she replied "It's white, and it's kind of flowy chiffon fabric with a split front and cap sleeves with beading." So I said "Ok, do you have a pen? Write this down: The bride wore a white chiffon gown with a full skirt and cap sleeves with detailed embroidery and embellishments. How does that sound?" She thought it sounded great. Duh. If you can describe your dress to me, you can describe it to the newspaper.

- YES, everyone that works here has strong arms. Good observation. We lift giant wedding gowns all day long and we carry about six bridesmaids dresses at a time. We also have a huge tolerance for ridiculous people.

- We really really don't have extra dresses in the back. I'm sorry. Some days you might get lucky and maybe there's a bra or slip in the right size that's back in receiving that we just haven't brought out yet but you don't understand how rare that is. We're not lying to you - we don't keep backstock of all this stuff. You really do have to order it.

- Nobody told you your alterations would be free, and you're really not the first crazy person who has tried to tell me that someone did. We spend LOTS of time going over what NOT to say to people about their alterations, and we all definitely, definitely know not to tell you that you alts are free. Shut up and get out of my line.

- Yes you need an appointment. Yes you will have to wait for-freakin-ever if you don't have one. I can't say it enough: You. Need. An. Appointment. I hate you.

Apparently there's something because last weekend I had no fewer than five brides-to-be that stared me straight in the face and refused to believe that we had no open fitting rooms in the store. Yup, we have almost forty rooms, and we've got people in every single one of them trying stuff on. People with appointments or people who waited up to two hours to get into a fitting room, just like you're going to. Here's how a typical encounter with one of these freaks goes.

Mere: Hi, how can we help you today?
Crazy: I need a wedding gown (Insert story here about how she has one that doesn't like or that she has ten favorites that she wants us to pull for her or that she is getting married in three weeks).
Mere: Ok, do you have an appointment today?
Crazy: No, I just want to try on dresses.
Mere: Well unfortunately this is our busiest time of the year so on the weekends all of our fitting rooms are assigned to consultants and right now they are all full with appointments and we're working off of a waiting list. I can put you on the list but you are still looking at at least an hour long wait.
Crazy: I don't need a consultant, I just want to try on dresses.
Mere: Thinking: Are you freaking kidding me, Crazy? I just told you what the deal is: I literally have no fitting rooms for you. They. Are. All. Full.
Mere: Says: I understand but as I was saying, there are no rooms available for you to try the dresses on in.
Crazy: Blinks
Mere: Thinking: You're waiting for me to tell you you're special, aren't you? You want me to say "But for you, I'd be happy to bend all the rules, because you aren't like those other people, you don't have to make an appointment and wait in line!" Guess what bitch, YOU SUCK!
Mere: Says: I'd be more than happy to put you on the waiting list, then you can pull up to three dresses and as soon as we have a room for you we'll page you.
Crazy: Insert passive aggressive (or sometimes just aggressive) comment here.

So Crazy registers, I put her on my list, and before you know it, she and her massive entourage (which may or may not include small children that are screaming and/or running away) have pulled about five dresses each and they are now trying to sneak into a fitting room. Really, Crazy? Did you not hear me when I told you that all our rooms are assigned to consultants? So the next thing Crazy knows, she's been busted and Brit or Mel or LC or whatever poor consultant whose room she tried to take over is walking her back up to the front, explaining what I just told her and turning her back over to me, where I smile fakely and let her know it will just be another hour or so. Also, I hate you, Crazy.

Oh and of course when she finally gets a consultant with a room the poor consultant has to walk all 30 of her dresses back to the front because she pulled dresses that were 2 sizes too small. Have I told you lately how much I hate brides?

I don't know exactly what happened, either I asked for too much time off (totally a possibility) or they didn't have hours for me this week so they held off scheduling me until Saturday, but I ended up with a glorious two weeks off instead of just one for vacation. Before you get happy for me, let me remind you: I do not get paid vacation. I have this job that is honestly worse than most. I've had some horrible ones in my day (spent a summer in high school working at the local Putt-Putt, mind you!) and I've been in the workforce since I was fourteen so saying that I, at 25, have a freaking terrible job, that's something. Plus I've tried to quit this job like four times now. I actually succeeded once, for about three months, until a manager called me and asked me to come back. Turns out I'm really good at this job. But I hate it and it's toxic and soul-crushing.

Uh, anyway. I've had this week off since we've been back from vacation and at some point I clicked on the Craigslist classifieds, just to see what's there. Turns out the answer is a lot of stuff! And while I'm not the most qualified, I know I'd be awesome at a lot of these jobs! Administrative assistant? I rock at typing and answering phones! Preschool teacher? Those are the only kids I don't hate! (Ok, that's not entirely true for a lot of reasons but let's don't get in to detail here!) I've been waiting to go into this career that will save the world but in reality all I really want to do is answer phones. Is that so bad? Am I rejecting feminism and all that so many have stood for if I say that I just want to be a stay-at-home mom and maybe make a few extra bucks for my family if I can? Are those lowly aspirations? Is that why I've resisted and fought tooth-and-claw to not finish my degree? Self examination is not always comfortable.

I know that D and I don't have kids right now, so the stay-at-home mom thing is out, but I do know that eventually that is what I want. At least until our kids are in school. Why build a career that I'm eventually going to leave anyway? And why does that career have to be in environmental management, or teaching, or social work? Why can't I just happily answer phones for eight hours a day and be happy? Oooh or if the stars aligned just right, writing? Ugh. At this point, I know that anything would be better than the job I have right now. Even my friends hate my job. I get no respect (Hey Rodney Dangerfield!) from my superiors, most of my customers, or half of my coworkers, and while I enjoy the job some of the time, most of the time it's exhausting. Wow this blog SUCKS. I'm so depressed right now, I'm going to go drink a Dr. Pepper. Anyway - what to do? I guess step one: open resume, click "send".

Oh PS I hope everybody caught the new ep of The Office. It was awesome. I don't want to spoil it for anybody but Andy + Prius + Dwight = LOL'd 'til I almost fell off the couch.

So you know that whole long list of weird stuff that people have done at work? Here's one I never thought would be on my list: #153: Left a thong on the floor. What? That's right. A thong. On the floor. Not in a fitting room, just right there near the front door of the store. WTF?!

OK, in the thong-dropper's defense, it was a *clean* thong and was most likely inadvertently dropped rather than tossed on our floor like we work in the "Rock of Love" house, but still. Thong. On. The. Floor. Just when I thought I'd seen it all. Even funnier was when dear Edna walked up to a group of girls and asked them if anyone dropped a thong. What a weird day! AND because I'm awesome I had to take a picture a) to prove it and b) I'm making a "FOUND" poster to canvas the shopping center with. Ok part B might be a joke. And I didn't get my camera until the thong had been moved from the floor to the evidence locker, a.k.a. the customer service desk. I think you get the general idea though. I didn't plan on this becoming a photo blog but the awesome won't stop soooo:


PS Do y'all remember the Thong Song? I've had it stuck in my head all day.

So here's the new game I'm going to play at work. I figure it's because of the economy ("The Economy" is what people blame the batshit crazies for now instead of "El Nino") but work's been exceptionally slow and full of crazy people lately, and I'm thinking that steadily sipping Malibu & Dr. Pepper during the day will greatly improve my outlook and probably productivity. Keep in mind that these are actual examples of things that have happened to me or a coworker on the job. So here you go:

1 DRINK:
- Bride proudly flashes her obviously fake "diamond" while talking about how much it cost. (Jan would've said "She's got herself a big ol' CZ!" while I laughed hysterically.)
- Somebody calls to get directions and when I ask them where they are right now they get annoyed and say "I DON'T KNOW!" Well then how do you suggest I direct you? Crazy person.
- Someone comes to pick up merch that's still in a box or is nowhere to be found.
- Someone calls to see if we have a certain dress in stock because she doesn't want to drive her fat butt all the way to the store if we don't have it.
- Someone swears up and down that they're a size 4... "I'm a 4, I'm a 4, I'm a 4." ...and half an hour later she's barely squeezing into a 10. No vanity sizing here, crazies! Also drink one for each size she had to skip through on her way to the one that actually fit AND chug if she's got the guts to say "Y'alls' sizes are wrong!" Yup, you're right, it's the dress' fault.
- 1 drink for every instance of irresponsible parenting you see in the store. Keep these drinks small, there's a lot of them.
- Someone that has never called the store or spoken to anyone there swears up and down that she has an appointment on a busy Saturday.
- Crazy person who ordered a dress in Houston acts surprised that we don't have it when she comes to the Austin store to pick it up. "I told them I'm from Austin they should have known to send it here." "Ma'am, that's not how it works, I'm sorry." Bonus drinks if she bitches about the cost of shipping it from Houston.
- Someone wants us to hold a dress for her until she gets paid...in a week and a half.
- Somebody utters the phrase "The alterations cost as much as the dress." Keep in mind, I hear this all the time but it's not always being said angrily. Luckily, most people understand that good alterations are expensive and they got a great deal on their dress in the first place.

5 DRINKS:
- Someone calls to see if we have five different dresses in stock because she doesn't want to drive her fat butt all the way to the store if we don't have it.
- Crazy person comes in to pick up the dress she ordered annnnnd it doesn't zip. (Jan would've said "She ate her way out of the dress, is what happened!" Ah, how I miss Jan!)
- Someone wanders in the week of their wedding and needs a whole mess of alterations done to make her dress fit but then whines about how much it costs.
- Somebody asks if they can return their dress if it still has the tags and hasn't been worn. Bonus 5 drinks if they tell you nobody told them about the all-sales-final policy (We make them sign their receipt where it states ALL SALES ARE FINAL and ALTERATIONS ARE AVAILABLE FOR AN ADDITIONAL COST). Extra bonus chug if it's the lady that yelled at me "WELL YOU SHOULD HAVE A SIGN THAT SAYS THAT SOMEWHERE IN YOUR STORE!" ("Ma'am, we do have them, they are at every cash register." - CHUGGGG!)
- Crazy person calls to make an appointment and says "I'm going to be in a hurry so can you pull these twelve dresses in a size 4 and have them in my fitting room when I get there?"
- An employee has to dye shoes ASAP because a) We screwed it up the first time, b) The bride/bridesmaid forgot or didn't know that our shoes come in white and have to be dyed any other color, or c) Somebody waited 'til the last minute to pick out her shoes.
- Chick who's getting married THIS WEEK comes in, finds a dress that fits her really well and is within her price range, and then says "I'll think about it and come back later." WHAAAAT?! I'm gonna sell that while you're gone just to piss you off.
- Somebody leaves a baby carrier with a baby in it unattended in the middle of the store. Because I'm a baby-sitter, duh!

CHUG:
- Someone calls and wants me to tell them the style number of every dress we have in the store in Victorian Lilac in a size 14. Bonus points if she has the balls to tell you "I have a really busy day so I only want to come in there if it's going to be worth it."
- Someone says they're going to call the BBB and complain about us. Um, a) get in line and b) get a new threat, do you honestly think we haven't heard that before? How about you're going to call my mom? Or, IDK, the governor?
- Kid pees in a fitting room.
- Bride selects the dress, and also decides to get the bra, petticoat, shoes, headpieces, etc. etc. etc. and then gets up to the register, watches us ring it all up, and then says "Oh well I can't pay for it today."

This list is subject to change

I was gonna write about something really good but I can't remember it anymore so DAMN IT. Instead: my creativity appears to be broken. SAD! The manager from one of the other stores called earlier and told us there's a competition going on that requires each store to have their own team name and that we needed to pick one. NOOOO!! I suck at picking names! So it was just me and LC and Heather Marie this morning and I was completely stuck and LC wanted to be something bridal-y like the "Crusading Corsets" (gotta admit, that's funny) or the "Galloping Garters" and Heather Marie was hungry, apparently because she offered up "Mudpies" and "Dip Cones". Dip Cones always make me think of Dilly Bars, so when Diane called back I was like "The Dilly Bars?" and there was silence and then I said "It was Heather's idea!" totally pushing my non-creative energy off on someone else (sorry) and Diane kind of loved it, I think. Then from the back of the store, Heather yells out "THE FIGHTING HERMIT CRABS!" and I repeated it and Diane goes "Sweeeeeeet!" and hangs up. Wait, what??? Nooo! Fighting Hermit Crabs? Really? Sure enough, later on we got an e-mail, this weekend going head-to-head in the competition are the "Mustangs" and the "Fighting Hermit Crabs". Holla.

- YES, we get a lot of bridezillas. Yes, they're that bad, and yes, brides from our store have been on the TV show before.

- NO, you can't give me ten style numbers and have me pull the dresses and put them in a fitting room because you'll be "in a hurry" at your appointment.

- NO, I can't hold a dress until Tuesday so you can come try it on.

- NO, alterations are not included in the cost of the dress.
ALSO: Yes, you have to pay in full with your first fitting. You don't go to a restaurant and then act surprised when they want you to pay, right?
AND: It's "alterations" not "alter-nations", and your dress is being "altered" not "alterated", "alternated", or any other twisted variety of that word.

- YES, all sales really are final. It's printed on a sign by each register, your receipt (which you signed), and on the garment tags. Even with your receipt, even with the tags on, even if you ordered it and never picked it up, all sales are final. Please choose carefully.
ALSO: No you can't exchange it.

- YES, without an appointment you might have to go on the waiting list, which could take an hour or longer before we can get you into a fitting room.
ALSO: No, I'm not lying to you, all of our fitting rooms really are assigned to consultants on the weekends.
IMPORTANT: This isn't a Target, things work a little differently here.


ALSO, A NOTE FOR GUYS: I'm sure you're convinced that it's incredibly clever and hilarious when you walk in the door and I ask how we can help you to say "I'm looking for a wedding dress..." just to see what happens. Fun fact: You're not the first guy this week to make that "joke". You're probably not even the first guy TODAY to make that joke. Want to know what would be really damn charming? To just say "I'm looking for my wife and kids." Because I know that's what you're probably doing, I just want to make sure. And also I'm testing you. Because if you were REALLY funny and clever, you would put your money where your mouth is and wear a freakin wedding dress for half an hour. And then we'd be friends and I'd respect you, because that's cooler than making a lame joke because you're uncomfortable walking in to a bridal shop. Are we on the same page? Next time just go to Best Buy, it's like, RIGHT THERE.

Back at the bridal shop. YUP. This is hell:

Congratulations, universe. You win.