By: Elrond Elfington [2005-12-06]

Winter Wonderland

Part 2 of 3

[If you haven't already, get up to speed with Winter Wonderland, Part 1]

Tuesday, December 16 2003:
Alcohol is a wonderful socialization drug. A heart to heart with Santa over schnapps has proven more than informative. In the stuff I should have already figured out column: This operation was FUBAR well before I was hired on. The other guy bailed because he was looking down the nasty end of some possible statutory rape charges, and that, my friends, also explains his hiring practices. I knew something was off, but I suspected Fatman because, well come on, how could I not? In the stuff I had no way of knowing column: Santa started talking about some guys he ran with back in the late sixties. One name stuck out: Sonny Barger. For those of you who aren't up on your sixties acid wave lore, if it's true this means Santa ran with the Hell's Angels when that meant something. He ate acid with the Merry Pranksters, went to parties with Hunter Thomson and Allen Ginsberg, and unquestionably has a rap sheet thicker than War and Peace. I don't know, I freely admit the old guy could be fucking with my mind, but he's about the right age and he does ride a motorcycle. He also has a few obscene tattoos, although you can't see them when he wears long sleeves. His veins are also fucked all to hell, but he assures me the recent trace marks are from donating plasma. All in all I'm not even too sure the mall went through one of those Santa agencies. Seems like they just grabbed the first beardy guy they came across. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have met Santa, but I doubt any of the customers would be pleased if they knew who's lap they just sat their children in.

Wednesday, December 17 2003:
What the fuck is wrong with these people? I watched as one of the fucking hellspawn TOOK A SHIT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LINE. He just squatted down and took a shit on the floor. He was like six or seven, and his mother was standing right there. Then she had the nerve to get in a shouting match with me about it. I'm not too sure if you're aware of this, but "YOUR KID JUST TOOK A SHIT ON THE FLOOR" is the all purpose rebuttal of all time:
"I'm not cleaning it up!"
"YOUR KID JUST TOOK A SHIT ON THE FLOOR."
"Can I talk to your manager?!"
"YOUR KID JUST TOOK A SHIT ON THE FLOOR."
"Fine, you just lost a customer!"
"YOUR KID JUST TOOK A SHIT ON THE FLOOR."
Repeat until security drags them off. And then comes the matter of cleaning it up. I tried to delegate. I tried my hardest to delegate. The blur of sixteen-year-old girls all said they would quit. Photo Joe and Santa were still working because people in the line would just step over it. So I grabbed a bag and took care of it reverse Ziploc style, flushed the whole damn mess (bag and all), and then single handedly set the ozone back a few decades with the canned pine tree smell. Take that, environment.

Friday, December 19 2003:
All my elves have either quit or expressed their intention to quit on the 23rd. I don't know if it was the shit on the floor, but now I'm pretty fucking sure I should have made someone else clean it up. The customers have become increasingly abusive as well. Photo Joe has joined Santa and myself in the Cottage during breaks, and that means the only three adults working here are all drinking throughout the day. Photo Joe was in the Peace Corps. I kinda feel bad. These guys have done shit I have only read about in books (literally, I have read books about stuff they've done), and I'm the snot-nosed college kid who gets put in charge of them. We've got a cabinet sort of locked up filled with a large booze collection and a huge bottle of peppermint mouthwash. I bought the mouthwash for purpose of masking the whole crew's aforementioned clandestine drinking, but the fuck if I know where the rest of all that alcohol came from. It's sort of like the multiplication of the loaves and fish except with booze, also Jesus is probably not involved. As for the coming personnel crisis, there's not all that much I can do about it. I could probably swing by that itinerant work agency thing and pick up an assemblage of undocumented workers. I really just don't know what to do.

Sunday, December 21 2003:
Busy. Snookered. And now apparently on my own. A day ago the Fatman swung by at 11:00 am. I thought we were canned for sure, but when we went into my office (Read: The Cottage) it became quite clear he was jacked up on something nasty. His pupils were the size of dinner plates, and he kept asking if people had come by looking for him. He kept asking over and over and over again, while frequently muttering something that I couldn't manage to make out under his breath. It was like someone fed a hummingbird with paranoid schizophrenia a whole bottle of reds. I actually offered him a drink just to calm him down. He took our cashbox with whatever we'd made at that point during the day and left. I knew I wasn't going to see him again. I've seen this type of thing before. My first job was closing at Little Caesars Pizza, and one night I watched our head managers come in and clean out the safe right out of the blue. When the morning crew showed up the next day the doors were locked. All the Little Caesars in the entire area were locked. The local Little Caesars franchise company I worked for went tits-up. Most of their old buildings are hole-in-the-wall Mexican dives now, and I never got my final check. None of us did. So right after Fatman had bailed I made a new rule: Cash only. My people are getting paid.

[Winter Wonderland, Part 3]

Wow. [2005-12-06 00:23:01] Hatless Jack
It's like watching some sort of glorious train wreck unfold in super-slow motion.
Three Parts [2005-12-06 01:03:37] König Prüße, GfbAEV
Yeah, but we know it will be three parts, unless there's a surprise. The set-up is pretty good, the suspense builds, and we are now expecting...what!?!? See? Suspense! That's the hook!
Hooking... [2005-12-06 01:17:22] Stonecutter
The hook, is the reason I read these threads.

This story is so true, that we are all ready to accept the nature of the Santa's Little Helper. I can't wait until somebody bans smoking or breathing.......

How can a person not be influenced by the rythmic thrummings of the bass guitar?

Are you the base or the guitar?
Ooops [2005-12-06 01:18:27] Stonecutter
Bass not base...
Ass of Bass! [2005-12-06 01:26:59] König Prüße, GfbAEV
I mean, Ace of Base...aw, you know!
To be honest this sounds a lot like my first job. [2005-12-06 01:47:15] Hatless Jack
Which was Taco Bell. The nighttime manager always showed up stone cold drunk at three, and things gyred out of control until we closed at eleven. The guys in the back played poker, we played broom-hockey with a piece of ice up front, and god help the bitchy customer who demanded the manager come out of his office for anything. He was the best manager I ever had.
Sorta like [2005-12-06 14:25:05] König Prüße, GfbAEV
It's sorta like some of my jobs, exept instead of elves, I get deaf midgets from hell.
song of my elf [2005-12-07 02:44:10] pithymood
My momma used to call me her little elf while she washed my hair... but years later, on the playground, Pat Latimore told me, "Girl, you got Devil Ears."
Deviled Eggs [2005-12-07 10:14:06] König Prüße, GfbAEV
I've got deviled eggs! With paprika on top.
Eggs & surreys.... [2005-12-07 11:41:22] Stonecutter
Eggs with paprika on top are probably better than a surrey with the fringe on top....
All content copyright original authors; contact them for reprint permission.