Melantrys’ Page

So only a few more days left of this year.

The fireworks sale starts tomorrow. Hooray. Not. Tomorrow we’ll have to start at 8:00. And our storage room from which we sell ‘em is so cooooooooooooold!!!
Oh well. I hope I will survive the two days to come. Stress, stress, stress, aaaaaaah!!

But then! Hahah! I’ll join the end of the annual LAM in Holland. Don’t fret, dear fans, even should I decide to not take my computer with me after all, I’m sure I will be able to use the host’s laptop.

Good night.

….. for I have nothing much to say at the moment.

A. is in hospital with kidney stones, work is stressing me out, and on top of it I seem to have developed a weird allergy - apparently to work.
If there I break out in itchy welts and rashes, at home they disappear and I’m fine. Hm. And considering how the boss’s wife getting angry at me for taking off sick the afternoon (doctor’s orders….) stressed me out as well I suppose I’d rather vote for something at work being the cause (buggered if I know what though) than work itself, as much as I hate it these days.
(If you’re new to this here blog just read up on posts like “Damn them filthy thieving Arabs”, and you’ll get why I don’t like my boss’s… huh… policy much…)

… to - hopefully - keep my faithful readers entertained.

Admittedly it’s not really new, but most of you won’t know it.

There’s this black lady who is a regular customer at the store. (No, this is not another boss story! )
She always does these weird things with her hair, like piling that incredible mass up or tying it up in a scarf of the American flag.

Anyway, she always smiled at me when seeing me at the store or elsewhere. Really friendly lady.
Only, since… er… two years ago she’s smiling even wider. Well, ok, not as much as the first few times, but I feel it’s still a bit more than it used to be.

The reason? I don’t know!

I was just returning from an annual festivity 30km from here. As I couldn’t have the car, I was going back by bus. And when I got on, there she was, riding home as well, giving me the widest smile ever and greeting me.

I am sure her reaction was totally unrelated to the fact that I happened to be wearing a mildly medievalish blouse, leather pants and no shoes and was carrying a sword and dagger….

(*listening to “In taberna” by Corvus Corax*)

Apparently some misguided small child has lost his little fluffy Teletubby dolly in the store yesterday. When we started work this morning it was lying on a table near the register.

My colleague K., who was doing the till this morning, took some other stuff from the table to put it away and accidentally knocked the doll off.

Now, dear readers, please guess what I said to her!

“Ooooooah, Teletubby aua!”

If that looks like “Awwww, Teletubby ouch!” to you…. you are right. Isn’t this sad? But then again, the only appropriate way to comment on a “hurt” Teletubby, innit?

(From medieval music to noise: Disturbed - The game)

I must have added up wrong last Saturday when getting the cash drawer all ready for Monday as my colleague K.’s count on Monday morning came up 1 Euro short.
In the afternoon Şişko was at the register; I was elsewhere in the store. I heard K. informing her of the missing Euro.

Şişko has this odd habit. Of course we don’t carry wallets when working at the till. But when buying something she always already rings it up, keeps the receipt and puts it in in the evening when she’s counting the money up at the office.

Now, I do know that she also occasionally puts money in when she didn’t shop and there’s money missing. Which is damn silly; we don’t have to. But not always anyway. Most of the times she just leaves the drawer like that, without even putting a note in, so that if you don’t count the money yourself in the morning you’ll think you lost the money yourself during the cause of that day… not that a note would really help in most cases because she frequently counts or adds up wrong.
And often when she has bought something and put the money in after the evening count, the drawer contains the standard amount of money in the morning. Which, sadly, is odd for her.

Well, on Monday evening she counted the money while I did the connected comp work. When she was done and had put in money from her wallet she announced that K. had been right indeed, and that the money came up 1 Euro short. I put the Euro in from the “petty money” in the safe.
So you can imagine my surprise this morning when I counted the money, and there was 1 Euro missing!
I only meant to find out where our counts of the different coins were off, and checked the paper she had done her adding up on yesterday. And guess what I found?
The total came up 1.32 short of what’s supposed to be in the drawer. Then she added what she had to pay for her shopping: 1.32 = standard cash drawer amount of money. Only…. she actually shopped for 1.35. I checked. Apparently she then remembered that there was supposed to be a Euro missing. So she crossed out the Euro on the paper and changed the total accordingly. And of course only put 0.32 Euros in.
Being the brilliant mathematician that she is she had also miscounted the 1 Euro coins by one. (That check I originally went up to the office to do showed that.) Had she not done that I’d never have wondered about the still missing Euro, but then of course she’d also have cheated the boss by “only” 3 Cents instead of 1.03 Euros…

I really don’t know what to do now.
The boss’s wife was shocked just last week upon finding out that Şişko had 8.03 Euros too much in the cash drawer without her noticing that in her evening count. Mrs G. kept brooding on that the whole day long and told her husband. Did anything happen? No.
Plus, Şişko is a world class liar. She already lied to my face about something that was concerning me, so she must have known I damn well knew that I was right.

Today a Turkish couple was shopping at the store.
Very, very regular customers.
Anyway, they wanted to buy four folding chairs, and I had a lot of fun already following their argument about whether to get blue or black ones.
While he was following A. into the direction of the cellar (and the chairs), she stood there, rolling her eyes, announcing to the world in general that blue chairs would not match anything in their kitchen at all.
Returning with the chairs he had to admit that his wife was right and that the black ones definitely had more style.

Then he asked me if he could leave the chairs at the register while they continued shopping instead of breaking his back with them. I told him that - quite on the contrary - he might even tone his muscles by carrying ‘em around for half an hour.
He said he’d rather pass, as he had seriously been having troubles with his back, and today was the first day that he felt able to attempt carrying anything again. “And already I have to carry these chairs; I think my wife is after my life insurance.”

When they were almost done, hubby stopped to look at a couple of watches. Like any undecided customer would do it. Handle this package, handle that one, approach me with a question about one watch (which I couldn’t answer the way I would have liked to, as the boss chose that moment to make an appearance; but the dude didn’t pick that watch then anyway, phew!), put that package back, stare thoughtfully at another one…..
… while all the while the boss was watching him very, very intently.

Yes, I know, even nice and funny people might attempt thefts. Even regular customers might attempt thefts. I just wish he’d stop watching every Turk, “Arab”, Russian, Sri Lankan or black person like a hawk…

A couple of months ago a former colleague was shopping at our place with her husband (both Russians), and he told me to follow them and make sure they didn’t steal. Hello?! All the time she worked there, there was never any reason to suspect her of anything. There just isn’t. She’s way too moral!

Bah, bah, bah…..

Still no sign of Orlando by the way; this is starting to worry me.

What else is “new”?

I still don’t know what “asshole” means in Arabic; shame on the Kid for suddenly having to log off. As my sister put it, one should never miss an opportunity to broaden one’s horizon.

The mutilated knuckle of my thumb is red and swollen and hurts; I think I really deserve some pity here… *pouts*

Oh, and I’m bored, so some more senseless picture posting:

Behold Birger, the Saxon…

… teaching me a bit of swordplay

Was too busy yesterday to post but this is just too funny. Well, at least to me it is.

At the end of each work day the Warengruppenbericht (containing, among other things, the day’s earnings) has to be faxed to Central.
The regular fax machine is broken, so until it is fixed (erm, ok, until the boss manages to re-install it…..) we are using his own private rather ancient fax machine.
It has been explained to Şişko, and she has used it in the past already.
The boss left early on Friday, it was my afternoon off, but still… no worries. All the difficult comp work for the day had been finished by the boss.
So.
On Saturday morning I checked the fax machine for the meter of requests from other branches and the spam we keep getting. And what else did I find? A copy of the Warengruppenbericht….
Now.
To fax, you insert the paper, printed side up. Then you pick up the connected phone and dial the number of the fax machine you want to send it to. When it starts beeping and screeching into your ear, you press the large “Start/Testkopie” button on the fax machine, then hang up the phone.
If you totally forget this rather extensive activity with the phone and just press the “Start/Testkopie” button the fax does what the button’s name suggests - make a rather ugly copy on fax paper.

*smirks*

The fax machine also prints a regular sending report (and luckily it had done so early yesterday morning) or I might have been moved to just destroy the copy (nice person that I am) and fax the Warengruppenbericht. But the lack of faxing activity shows up on the report of course, and the boss would wonder at that. And my love for that colleague really doesn’t run so deep that I’d destroy that report as well; the boss would miss it.
So I faxed the thing, made a note on the copy saying that I had, stapled it to the report and put it on the boss’s desk for his reading pleasure when he’ll be back on Wednesday…

Also - Şişko never tiring of telling the boss how lazy I am and the like (not true!) - I immediately informed A. and S. of what she had done.
That brightened up our day a treat.

Still no sign of Orlando….

I discovered something very disturbing yesterday and today.
We are selling a Schnappie game (you gotta catch Schnappies out of a pond with a sort of fishing rod) and a Schnappie figure; you know, the kind you put in the back of the car which nods its head.

*wails*

In other news: Dear sister of mine, the Christmas department has finally been opened. Come and take a look around.
Do come anyway. Maybe you need some cheap towels or sheets or stuff. For the first time ever we’re selling those with 30% off!!!!

Which is the reason why I bought myself a (dreadfully brown) fluffy blanket.

Oh, and still no sign of Orlando.

I know I promised you yesterday that I would post today, but I don’t really have any idea what to post about.

I could ramble a bit about my day, what do you say?

How about the boss quote of the day?
He discovered 3 rolls of plastic freezer bags that someone had pulled some bags out of. From the middle of the roll of course. So while he was unrolling and re-rolling them and muttering I said: “Well, now, Mr G., if the poor people didn’t know what a freezer bag looks like….” Mr G.: “True, they surely don’t know that in the Ukraine.”
No further comment.

Still no Orlando shopping at the store; he must really have read the blog….

Oh, and a colleague made me smile today. After having unpacked some Halloween decorations she was muttering about not liking Halloween at all and not giving the kids anything. Then she asked me when Halloween was anyway. Me: “October, 31st.” She: “It’s always pretty close to All Saints’ Day, isn’t it?” Me (mumbling): “Yes, that’s why it’s called Halloween.”
Ahhhh, I should be more generous towards people who don’t speak English. But regarding her age she must have had it at school….

Last, but not least, I can proudly announce the harvest of all of the ripe peppers, plus their cutting in half, scraping out the pips and freezing them.
Now all I gotta do is remember not to rub my eyes……..

Hey, wait a minute, this is a post!!!

Originally I wanted to write some more stuff on the elections today. But I’m so damn tired of that crap.
Suffice it to say, now that Dresden 1 has voted as well, the CDU gained one more seat in Parliament. Still Müntefering (SPD) claims that the SPD is the strongest faction. Are rumours that the SPD wants to deny the CDU/CSU the right to be counted as one true? Did Schröder only stand up to Bush on the Iraq issue to now become just like him and manipulate an election? Now that’s a scary thought.

And tomorrow I will have a day off, er, we will be celebrating the German reunion. If the weather is fine and I can kick my sis and bro-in-law into action I might go to that Tag der offenen Tür (literally: day of the open door, dunno the correct translation) at the mosque two villages away that a customer told me I should go to. Bazar, food stalls…… Yes, right, faithful friends. Yummy Turkish food and veganism does not compute. But sis and me can watch bro-in-law eat I suppose. Oh well, we’ll see what the day will bring.

Talking about that customer, lol, she was there to bring back a faulty watch, and told A. and me that she had bought that when the fat lady had been at the till, “I always forget her name.” Me: “Mrs J.” A.: “Or you could just say Şişko (see previous post for spelling and pronunciation).” She laughed even more when I mentioned that I was well aware of what that means….

Bluh (copyright by da Muffin Man). It is late, so good night everyone. Or welterusten, as teh Dutch faction would say.