My Wal-Mart adventure ended at Kmart, which seemed strange to me. Especially when I ran into Ronda, a former coworker whom I hadn’t seen in, what, the 9 years since I left Kmart for bigger and better things.
I ended up buying a case of standard-issue white-with-red-and-green-stripes peppermint candy canes. 48 boxes, 12 canes each, for a total of 576 canes. More than we needed, but the extras can go into the giant Christmas stockings they raffle off to employees each year as another token of thanks for their service.
:: • :: • :: • :: • ::
I also bought eight 2-quart bottles of apple cider, which we’ll use in the gift shop to make wassail customers can sample so we can sell more of the wassail mix.
Eight 2-quart bottles of apple cider weigh a lot when you try to grab them all out of the cart and put them into your car’s trunk. And when two bottles leap out of your arms, you look pretty silly chasing them as they bounce merrily across the parking lot.
:: • :: • :: • :: • ::
I found myself answering two other Kmart customers’ “Where do I find ___?” questions as I walked through the store to find the candy canes and apple juice.
I was wearing jeans, a green shirt, and a long black coat, looked nothing like a Kmartian, but they accepted my help as though I were some authority figure.
And my brain was shrieking, “No! Don’t do it! NOOOOOOOOO...!!!” as I spoke each time.
I really should listen to my brain.
:: • :: • :: • :: • ::
The Wal-Mart had a vast quantity of peppermint candy canes but the store manager (“I’m the store director,” he haughtily informed me) wouldn’t sell me more than two boxes (24 canes) in any single purchase. As if making 21 separate transactions was even remotely a possibility.
The guy had a guaranteed sale but did everything in his power to subvert it.
Some people shouldn’t be in positions with any authority.
:: • :: • :: • :: • ::
They make bubble-gum-flavor candy canes, I discovered today.
These candy canes are hideously pink, such that I could tell they’re hideously pink, despite my trouble with colour vision.
When I first saw these candy canes, I thought: “Who’d have guessed they’d make Pepto Canes now.”
I half-expected those idiot Pepto Dancers to appear down the aisle.
:: • :: • :: • :: • ::
The Mill Creek apartment folks called me today, everything’s ready for Jan 01 availability on my apartment.
Woo hoo!
Time to fire up the phone and get utilities and such connected, and then I must decide if I want to switch my cell phone to a Cingular plan (which I’m sure would require a new phone, something I’m not ready to do yet) immediately when I arrive in WA or keep my UT number for a period of time.
All my family and friends have cell phones too, so they’d be able to reach me without long-distance charges. (I think. I guess I shouldn’t make that assumption because I don’t know the details of my friends’ cell plans.) It’d only be work and similar entities who’d have to pay to call me. So keeping the SLC number for a while longer appeals to me.
I wonder if I can have a Mill Creek-area number assigned to me now, while I’m still in Salt Lake?
Then again, I don’t want to cause Cingular’s employees grief, especially since they’re probably AT&T Wireless employees who are still wondering if their jobs will continue beyond the next few months.
So wait I will. And I know how fascinating this little debate has been with myself, hence my need to publish it to the world.
:: • :: • :: • :: • ::
I was invited to a holiday gathering at Red Butte Café in Foothill Village, a strip mall on Foothill Boulevard on the east bench. Red Butte Café is located directly beneath a TGI Friday’s we used to frequent before they stopped with the striped shirts and the buttons and hats and general fun and went serious and all-black and stupid-menu. So we don’t go there anymore, also because the server who knew us so well, Donna, has long since left there too.
But anyway, there were 12 or so in our party at Red Butte and I was the only man. We were all from the hospital, so we knew we all had that in common, but they’d established a “No talking about work!” rule. So we didn’t talk about the hospital at all until about 17 minutes into the event.
I hadn’t been to Red Butte Café in years, since the time my sister and I took our mom there for brunch on Mother’s Day sometime in the 1990s (no idea what year). I had carne asada tacos which were delicious; nearly everyone else had a salad. I had a draft beer; nearly everyone else had dainty little margaritas, with the exception of a glass of wine here and there.
And we all exchanged little gifts. We were required to take a holiday ornament wrapped for exchange, which we did by way of a Fun Holiday Story with characters named RIGHT who did things that LEFT them in certain circumstances blah blah blah. Every time the storyteller said the words RIGHT or LEFT, we’d pass the gifts the indicated direction. The bags and small wrapped packages must have made four or five complete trips around the table before the story ended.
The other restaurant patrons certainly enjoyed the spectacle. I think we scared the hell out of the server.
:: • :: • :: • :: • ::
My ornament is a little frosted acrylic snowman. All I need now is a tree upon which to hang it.
:: • :: • :: • :: • ::
Speaking of trees: My friend Julie Anne’s tree, which is barely six feet tall, has 22 strands of small white lights on it.
I’m pretty sure it’s the lights holding up the tree now, and the ornaments are just kinda floating along with it all.
:: • :: • :: • :: • ::
Note to Red Butte Café: If it takes the server 5 minutes to describe a Pasta Salad of the Day that would take just two minutes to eat, the salad has too many ingredients.