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Twas the Day Before Christmas

All right, all right, last post for today. There are so many I've wanted to do, and this is the first time in awhile that I've had time. Anyway, here's something I with some help from a few guys at work came up with yesterday during the drawn-out day of Christmas Eve.

PS- "Green" means really, really good. Target stores are either in the red, yellow, or green, and most are stuck in yellow-- only few every achieve the perfection of green by the district execs.

Twas the Day Before Christmas

Twas the day before Christmas
And all through the store
Every team member was running
As the customers demanded more

the end caps were filled with clearance galore
From aisle A1 to aisle G44
The backroom was cleaned with the utmost of care
In hopes that Christmas bonuses soon would be there

Team members rushed about it their khaki and red
While visions of going home danced in their head
A team huddle was held in the middle of the day
And each team member prayed they wouldn't be asked to stay

Then the manager apeared with a smile on her face
And informed one and all everything seemed in place
She gave them a pep talk; they seemed to be dead
Then with these words sent them back to their dread:

"Go team leads, go backroom, go price change and sales flooor.
Guest service and plano, cashiers and operator."

The teamed worked hard as the day wore on
Then noticed with delight it was almost gone
The clock struck six and the customers fled
And the team members began to smile as they nodded their heads

One final sweep and the store was clean
It was even so good as to be considered green
They ran for their cars as they sang out this song:
"Merry Christmas to all and may tomorrow be long!"

"I'm Dreaming of a Red Christmas"...

... also known as "Christmas at Target." Ahhh, the holidays and retail. This particular Christmas has been so much better than those of the past at my place of employment. In the two years before, we've had so much overstock it was ridiculous. The backroom had to be waded through and all the shelves were overflowing. There was never any room to backstock and pulling the things that customers bought for restock (otherwise known as pulling batches) took hours and hours and we never finished on time.

This year we have a new manager, and though she pushes us hard, things get done. As of yesterday, the backroom was completely empty of all Christmas stuff, we were finishing batches and stocking them within an hour, and our normally gruff leader person, Rocky, was outside barbecuing, complete with a Santa hat, for our Mexican Christmas lunch.

As Irene, a fellow college-age co-worker put it, yesterday was the epitome of Christmas at Target: we had Mexican food, James Brown, and Jessica dying (James Brown was singing on our breakroom TV and Jessica had just whined that Irene made her die on the video game she was playing. Good times, good times.

Anyway, we slacked off for the better part of yesterday since Rocky was not there to keep us in line, and everything was already in good shape anyway. And the most beautiful thing happened: we kicked all customers out at six o' clock. It was wonderful getting work done without the forty-second person coming up to ask where the tape was or to complain about the lack of carts. And don't even get me started about the Bermuda Triange....

NEW BLOGGER ALERT

Three down, one to go. First it was Justin # 2 and his Adventures of Mr. Awesome. Then Jesse broke through with his ThunderRalleyRacer site. And now we have Mr. Secret Agent Man himself, Tyler Deyling, the newest blogger, setting up a site for his new bent in life, that of a secret service coffee maker.

So you all are not thoroughly confused, my good friend Tyler got accepted to an internship with the secret service for the next semester, and for a possible paid job over the summer. This is exciting news for us as well as for the gun-wielding, bad-guy getting TJD himself. And as he will be gone so long we decided he must blog his life as coffee getter for all of us to see.

So here's his site address: www.secretagentmantd.blogspot.com
He is not accepting comments yet (Justin and I have to change that on his site still), but that will be up and running soon.

And Ty, don't worry-- I'm sure they'll let you make copies, too. :)

Senioritis as a Junior

It has been brought to my attention recently that I have senioritis. This is unfortunate, seeing as how I still have three semesters left after this one!!! This semester is almost over, and I couldn't be happier, though I still have until Friday before everything really calms down. I've brought down the "plethora" (word brought to you by Adelaide and Frijole's Favorite Words of All Time Dictionary) or essays to a minor five, four of which are for a final due no later than two thirty on Friday afternoon (Dr. White has no mercy on us), so I should probably get cracking. Errrrr..... I don't want to. Justin # 2, please don't call me tonight and reprimand me for slacking on my homework-- despite the fact that I've been quite lackadaisical about all of it, I did manage to pull off an A on that reality paper, and a 99% on that math test. I should market my technique: don't do your work and still pull off a sold B in any class!

In other news, the bookstore is only offering a buyback for one of my books, and it's not even from this semester, but from three ago. And my classes for next semester are looking to be $60 and over each. Yikes. Add that to the $2500 I'm trying to scrounge up to live in center this semester with my wonderful friends Frijole and Salsa, and you have... sore knees from the hours of prayer spent beseeching God for mercy.....

Justin Paul's birthday party

Unfortunately, I cannot go into many details of what went down at this particular party. Let's just say to welcome Justin into the twenty and over club, we (Jessica and I, along with help from Justin #1, Mikey, and Jesse) effectively scarred him for life with a lesson in Femininity 101. We'll leave it at that. We also played a new game called Spin the Cell Phone (there were no available bottles), just to say we've played the game, although no one ever really did it except Mikey and Jessica cuz they're allowed to. The rest of us blew air kisses. And sadly, the boys seemed more excited when the cell phone rested upon one of their own, rather than on one of us girls. As Justin Michael (#1) would say, *sigh*. Boys are funny.

Procrastination (and snowboarding)

So here I am, a glorious Saturday night where I don't have to work, but unfortunately am stuck with a ten page paper for Dr. White's grammar class. So of course I find myself wandering from the monstrous homework assignment over to blogs and xangas and catching up on everyone's life.

I realized I have not yet had time to write about last week's snowboarding trip, so I guess I'll do that now (cuz it's more fun to write than an essay!)

In the deep recesses of the dawn us four brave souls awoke to greet the day and what it held for us. We arrived at justin #1's house at five thirty, loaded up the Montero, and headed off on our adventure: Albertson's at six in the morning. Talk about a zoo. We loaded up on gatorade, water, and other snacks to carry with us on the mountain (which we promptly forgot to take out of the car and pocket when we got there).

The ride up was especially fun, as we amused ourselves with, first the alphabet game ( I won, with an amazing last minute spotting of the word 'Zita' on an Italian restaurant window right before we stopped at a Carl's Jr.), and then moved on to 20 questions, where the three guys seemed to forget for an hour than I AM A GIRL... but it was still fun.

We finally got up there, parked, spent twenty minutes layering ourselves with extra clothes, socks, hats, etc., and then caught a ride up to the mountain. Another half an hour later I had a board, we all had lift tickets, and we were waiting in line for the lift.

Now, if you all have read my previous Knott's Berry Farm log, you will know that I don't like roller coasters or rides like that. And one of the reasons for that is that they go up high. So it's reasonable to say that I don't like the ski lift either, although I can do it without freaking out, as long as the bar stays down. Jesse and Justin #1 thought it would be funny to lift the bar up mid-ride and the result was a scathing look and a vow to never speak to either of them again if they did not put it back immediately. They did, and I was calmer. (I know, I'm horribly weird and a fraidy cat... I'm dealing with it, you all should too.)

We got to the very top and Jesse goes down the first incline like he does it everyday. Now even though I know how to "plow", I still have never been able to stay up on that first steep part, so I didn't even bother trying, and slid down instead to join him. Justin #1 was teaching Justin #2 how to get up and plow toeside, which I was very envious of because I cannot do that but now Justin can. When I try, I fall on my face. Maybe I will master the fine art of toeside next time.

Anyway, so Jesse taught me a few tricks to help me find better balance and an ability to turn of my own free will (up till now, the board has always been in control), and I even was able to get some speed. If it weren't for that stupid part that's practically flat and all ice with the speedbumps, I think I could get down the whole mountain in about fifteen minutes, with only a few falls.

Around three thirty, it just started getting too cold and the snow was practically ice, so we packed up and left. Down the mountain we go, singing along with such songs as "Tribute" (of which, yes, even I know the words),with a pull over to the side of the road to fill the cooler with fresh snow (with which we later "snowed" the outside of Jessica's apartment). Then back in the Montero, an hour down the mountain, and a stop at this ghetto Subway that was also part of an AMPM. Don't even get me started on this Subway. Justin #1 and I slept for most of the way home, but fortunately i woke up in time for 95.7 to play the best song in the world, and to force Jesse and Justin #2 to listen, too, as well as to some other country greats. Justin #1 woke up somewhere around the off-ramp to Jessica's apartment, and when we called Mikey to inform him of our evil plan, he took Jess and Gwen out to Jack in the Box so we could "snow" her. So we put the gloves back on, made her porch a winter wonderland, and then hid in the trees for fifteen minutes (freezing). The guys were giddy with tiredness by this time and were playing some weird hide and seek among the trees, and when I mocked them for this, Justin #1 tried to put me in the cooler. It didn't work. Anyway, Jessica and Mikey came back, and by then the snow was more of a puddle, but she still liked it. And then we went back to the Aubrey's house, cleaned the Montero out of empty gatorade bottles and granola bar wrappers, drove home, and fell fast asleep. The next day I was so sore, I couldn't take my sweatshirt off by myself, and the day after that at work, i couldn't lift any boxes that were over my head. But it was totally worth it, and I am so buying my own snowboard before we go again.

The End.