yet another running diary

on saturday i, along with a number of my associates, served at our large, consumer-driven Christian company's warehouse sale. the following is a (unfortunately truncated) running diary of my experiences. please note: the running diary format is a blatant rip-off of the work of bill simmons, aka "the sports guy," who works for espn page 2. thus, the form of this post is admittedly unoriginal.

7:30 a.m.: well, it's seven-thirty a.m., i have a raging sinus infection and i'm sitting next to a forty foot tall air filter in a musty warehouse. it must be time for our spectacular showroom sale! in the hours that follow you will undoubtedly be introduced to inane seminarians, miserly saints and hostile homeschool moms. are you ready? i thought so!

7:39 a.m.: i just finished with my first customer. he didn't know his zip code, which is surprisingly common, and he perked me up by offering a lame joke about his method of payment. "mr. adams, what method of payment would you like to use today," i asked. "credit card," he quickly responded. "can i see your card please," i continued. "here it is" he said, holding it above my head, yet well within my light of sight, "isn't it pretty?"

this job would be great if it wasn't for the f(*&^%^$ customers!

7:55 a.m.: have yet to service another customer. over the past four years i have found that customers are remarkably hesitant to approach cashiers who refuse to make eye contact. who knew?

i've been passing the time by snapping co-workers with my scarf.

8:14 a.m.: i just had a customer who hailed from montauk. however, i suppressed the urge to whisper in her ear, "meet me in montauk," since she was old and somewhat grisly and i seriously doubted whether i would have a good time.

8:29 a.m.: it's freezing cold in here and i feel like shit. maybe if it continues to be slow, or i cough on some poor, unsuspecting pastor's kid, they'll let me go early.

8:47 a.m.: the young engineering student manning the terminal beside me just glanced over and said, "hey, i know you! you're the one who popped the beach ball at the red sox game!" during the yearly visit to fenway i may or may not have spoiled the bleacher idiots' fun by bursting their contraband beach ball with my trusty G-2 pen. i freely admit that i'm a baseball fundamentalist who has no tolerance for the casual fan. shoot me.

9:07 a.m.: just had my first garage sale shopper of the day. she tried to get me to lower the sale price of a bible, and i politely refused. she then tried to tell me that a box of Christmas cards was not $1.59, like our system suggested, but $1.29. no dice. so she left our sale huffy and empty handed. what a shame.

9:49 a.m.: i just had a customer who sounded southern, so i asked her where she was from. she said she hailed from houston and came up specifically for the sale. i was floored. i offered her a discount if eh would make me a chicken fried steak with fried okra dinner, but she declined since her flight left in three hours. so i made her pay full price. lovely woman though.

9:58 a.m.: a rather homely mennonite woman, clothed in homespun regalia and properly covered with a little white bonnet just waddled up to my desk. after she opened her hand-made wicker basket and put her purchases on my desk, i asked her what method of payment she would be using. i expected cash, check or (perhaps) barter, so you can imagine my surprise when she said "discover card." is this legal? shouldn't she have paid me with buffalo nickels or offered homemade products for trade? "how about a bale of hay for the kjv study bible" she should have queried. and surely would have accepted a pound of goat cheese for the purpose driven life. but a discover card? really.

10:22 a.m.: my friend christine just emancipated me. now i'm at "sku lookup" where we look up warehouse locations for people who are too technologically inept or lazy to look them up on the two dozen web terminals we have provided. that being said, sku is to checkout as the rst is to the quick stop. life is better over here.

10:53 a.m.: just saw a former seminary professor we lovingly called "the tin man." since my friend josh and i are horrible at names, we gave everyone handles of our own design. pear-ass, foot-eater, glassy, pixie-stick, periwinkle, admiral ackbar and periwinkle were a few of our favorites. although he encouraged my pessimism and subtly corrupted my doctrine of humanity, i miss joshie.

11:26 a.m.: just when you think you've seen everything, a nun, in traditional habit, walks by and greedily grabs a handful of the prayer of jabez for teens.