This title is for Beth and has nothing to do with my post. Afghan girl beheaded after refusing man's wedding proposal.

December 1, 2012

Welcome to December.  Traditionally this is my least favorite month of the year.  Right there with January and parts of February.  Hate the cold, do I.  It really has little to do with the holidays so much.  Yes, retail will beat the love of all things holiday out of you, but if Christmas were truly in July, I may not hate it so much.  I would have hung lights on our house if I could have done it wearing shorts and a tee shirt.  If I had a time machine, I would revisit the birth planning schedule for Mary and Joseph. 

What do you mean I need to reread the Bible?  Immaculate what?

So here we are at the brink of coldness.  Beth and I keep coming out from under our couch blankets long enough to tell CJ how we will be moving somewhere warm someday and he keeps telling us how disappointing that will be for him.  Drat.  At what point do we say screw him and leave town for warmness?  Time will tell if we ever do.

As for this past week, it was a bit strange for me as it pertains to work and sleeping.  Someone was on vacation from our overnight shift and the new assistant guy gets to fill in.  That was me if you haven't been paying attention.  I looked at it as a good training opportunity to see what our o/n team actually does and what kind of things go on in a CVS at 2am.

That is what I am here to tell you about.  Approximately none of you care about the other stuff, but Beth and CJ somewhat enjoyed the stories of 2am CVS customer interactions.  So here is what I can tell you.

The main request in the wee hours of the morning is Preparation H.  If you think about it, for those of us who work "normal" hours, it would take a lot to get you to leave your house in the middle of the night to go shopping.  Pain in the posterior region qualifies.  I had 3 people request the Prep H.  One dude, when I asked if I could help him find anything, said he would rather not say.  I told him that I was probably going to have to ring it up, so unless he was going to boost it, he might as well tell me.  We found it and hopefully he is sitting easier for it today.  Another woman also requested some Preparation for her H, but added that she also needed an applicator this big (insert picture of person doing the $5 foot-long pose).  She told me she did not want to tell me why she needed this Black Forest on Italian sized applicator, and I told her whatever she had going on was between her and her horse.

There are customers who shop in the middle of the night regularly.  I suppose they have 2nds shift jobs or insomnia or good reasons to do so.  One lady has a route with three stops on it during which she feeds "her" stray cats.  She was especially giddy for somebody up at 3am.  I sold her one of those 5' Santas.  Better to get rid of those things since they freak you out when you think you are alone in the store and you turn a corner to find Santa staring at you.

Another lady was making a purchase to solve an ailment she had.  She was reading on line what some of the causes of her eye pain might be.  I looked down to see what she was purchasing.  I expected to see stress relief meds, or something for dehydration, or saline eye drops, or a pirate eye-patch.  What I did see was a pregnancy test.  "Oh, I said.  Really?"  Color me alarmed because I have had some eye pain lately.  I thought it was fatigue or too much caffeine, but perhaps not.  I immediately went to pee on a stick and am relieved to tell you that I saw the minus sign.  Or the plus sign.  Not sure which one is good news when you don't want to be pregnant.

Anyway, the clincher story is not good timing if you are eating.  As you may have figured out, some of the people who have to stop by The CVS in the middle of the night are ill.  One child in particular had apparently eaten several meals and then had an upset stomach.  You can see where this is going.  Sometime during their stay in the store, he morphed into an oscillating sprinkler of vomit.  Pleasant, I know.  Thank goodness that the carpet in CVS is actually laid in squares.  I had to remove 8 squares of 2x2 carpet and hose them down.  My math degree tells me that is approximately 32 square feet of chicken noodle soup.  Fortunately, I am not one of those sympathy barfers.  Turning into Bob Barfer would not have helped the situation. 

So that is CVS in the middle of the night.  See what you are missing out on.  I am back to day side this week.  I had my assessment with my district manager on Friday and it went well.  There are no openings currently for a store manager, but she wants me to be ready for when it happens.  She feels I am ready now and I think so too.  I know God has a plan, so we will see how it all plays out.  I will keep you informed.  Until then, let's just enjoy December and get ready for the holidays.