puppetmaker | Tis the Season....

For those of you working in the retail industry, you have my sympathies today. Between the sales and the returns and tall tales that will be told about goods it can be a hella day. I remember at Borders someone trying to return a Microsoft book that was missing the CD and was highlighted AND 2 years out of date. They said they bought it from our store Christmas Eve but the recipient already had it. Now the bookstore chain I worked for had a very good inventory control system. I could look up the ISBN and see the last time we had sold a copy was well over a year ago. Plus we had a firm no return policy on the computer books if the seal was broken on the software. The sob story that came after I informed them that this could not be returned was long and pitiful and then of course came the accusation that I was being a bad clerk and get the manager. To which I was able to inform them that I was the manager and if they had a complaint then here is the number that they can call to the head offices about the store. 3 days later in the paper I see an article about a couple who had been arrested for fraud. They apparently had a scam going about finding receipts in the parking lot, stealing the items from the store, and returning them to the store for money. I recognized them by the picture as my expensive computer book returners.

Christmas was very nice. We started with Eggs Benedict for breakfast. I let Caroline open one present before breakfast so she would have something new to play with. She did very well in the present department. Ariel did very well as well. She got her coveted cell phone for starts and lots of other fun and useful stuff. I got Peter the walk-along King Kong toy. He got all kinds of books on various subjects including the history of the world as told through alcoholic beverages. I got the deluxe edition of "Dressing the Galaxy" among many other cool things. I then took Ariel and my sister Sheila to see King Kong which took up a good chunk of the afternoon. We had a nice dinner of tenderloin roast and then lit the Chanukkah candles. Ariel then taught her aunts and uncle how to spin the dredel. Much hilarity and cut-throat dredel spinning ensued. We finally took what we thought was a very tired Caroline back to the hotel. I think she went to see before 2 AM and woke up at 5 AM then at 8:30. Today is meeting up with some old friends and visiting the family.

I am grateful for Caroline's cheerful "Morning Mama" this morning.