Beat.

Today was fuckwit day at the B.S. Squared. I am starting to recognize the pains in the ass before they are able to approach me, though, so I'm saving myself a lot of trouble by simply walking determinedly in the opposite direction. Elizabeth's stalker was in today. He still hasn't figured out that none of us like him, but my retail ninja skills worked just fine.
"Hooks?" I asked, not looking up at him. "Over there on that aisle." I pointed to the nearest aisle (which actually had what he was looking for- I wasn't lying), then waited until he turned around before leaping to my feet and rushing outside.
Just as the automatic doors were closing behind me, I heard him say "Do you know..."
No sir, I do not.

Another guy actually sniffed Elizabeth and told her that she smelled "bad in a good way" today. I wish I had been standing there, because I would have told him he smelled bad in a bad way. Or just punched him in the crotch. What a pig.

Next up, a woman who was standing in the middle of the garden center, saying "I need help" very loudly to no one in particular. No, she had not fallen, nor (unfortunately) was she having a heart attack. She had a question about fencing, and rather than going back to talk to Jon, who was standing next to the fucking fencing, she shouted and waved him over to her. When they both walked back to the fencing area, her husband asked me a question about a plant on the table in front of him. Since I wasn't sure, I stood up, leaving behind what I was working on, and walked over to look at the plant and read the attached tag. Having heard him, his wife swooped back in,and before I could answer, she snapped

"She doesn't know."

I ignored her and addressed his question calmly, adding an offhand remark comparing the plant to one that was perennial in some parts of the country, Georgia included.

"That kind isn't perennial," she snapped. "Only the blah blah blah kind are perennial."

I answered, very calmly, "Actually, that's not true."

She looked at me incredulously. "I've done it. I've had them." She was drawing a line in the invisible retail sand, daring me to cross it, like George H.W. Bush.

Cucumber like, I stepped over the line, squinting at her through my cheap sunglasses. "I have too. In my yard. They're perennial." I was Clint Eastwood.

"Well, excuse me" she replied, in a not-unlike Steve Martin circa 1978 tone, stomping off. Her husband, about whom I had completely forgotten, looked deflated. He put the plant down and followed her.


L and I were cracking up at the stupidest things today. We got a very large order of houseplants in, which included a number of Majesty Palms, and she took great pleasure in bowing slightly and saying "Your Majesty" in her lovely British accent as she put each one on the shelf. AT one point we were both bent over the same plant, obviously preparing to lift it (it was quite large and required all of our hands) when a woman who was, as L put it "wider than she was tall" came barreling past us with her five children in tow, completely blocking the aisle we were set to put it in. This was pretty much how the rest of the day went, and I was thankful that I had L and E there to joke with or I think I'd have wanted to shoot up the store.

Anyway, I finally got out of there, went to get the b.h., and we ate some pizza (white with broccoli and garlic- hells yeah) and then went shopping for work stuff. We are neither of us clothes horses, so a trip to the store is usually not very pleasant for either of us, but he managed to find some good work shoes, and I a few pairs of shorts (the first I have owned in several years), and we got back here before ten. Alas, I have no energy left to go either to Jenn's house for a beer on the deck or the Modern Skirts show at the Forty W@tt tonight. Actually, I think I'm about to turn in.