Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 02 - Christmas Bizarre (2 page)

I pulled into the lot and parked way, way back as instructed
. After all, I was at the mall as an employee, not a shopper. I had ignored this rule for my first couple of shifts (how would they know it was my van?) and got a written warning, along with a demerit from my upcoming coupon cache. Since they already had a fix on the Doo-doo, I didn’t want to risk losing anymore coupons.

Tiny
flakes of snow began to flutter down from a dreary, grey sky, as I walked across the parking lot. It wasn’t exactly Christmas-type snow, but at least it wasn’t rain. The bland day matched my plain-vanilla mood.

Inside Christmas carols blasted
more or less merrily. The mall was already open for business with expanded store hours, welcoming stouthearted early birds. I made my way toward the Santa kiosk. As usual, I walked smack dab into the middle of a fight.

“I did not!”

“You did TOO!”

“NOT!”

“TOO!”

Santa sat on
top of his St. Nick throne with his head in his hands. The kid standing next to him, who was supposed to be in his lap, was wailing to beat the band.

“I want my picture with Santy!”

I looked around for the kid’s mother. She was yakking on her smartphone nearby. I rolled my eyes back toward the kiosk and attempted to referee Sheree and Barry.

“Wazzup?” I took off my jacket and tucked it under the employee table, behind the computer picture taking setup.

Barry harrumphed and shoved his hands on his hips.
“She’s deleted all the photos off the hard drive!”

“I did not!” Sheree whined.

I held up a hand. The boy next to Santa cried some more. “Look, go give the kid a cookie while we fix this.” I shoved a Santa’s Snack at Sheree.

“Are you kidding? We can’t give him this – they cost
seven-fifty!”

“Just give it to him! I’ll pay for it!” Santa hollered back.

Sheree shrugged, took the cookie and left.

“So what happened?”

Barry sighed and threw his hands up in the air melodramatically.
“I don’t know. I think she did a re-boot in the middle of starting up. I can’t find any of the photos from last night! All those families are allowed to email us for the next
year
for more prints! I’m afraid to take the kid’s picture in case it permanently erases the previous ones!”

“Wow.
That’s a problem.”

“Thanks.”

“Did you call Nelson?”

Barry shook his head.
“No. I guess I have to. I hate calling Nelson.”

I nodded in agreement.
Nelson is a real SHIT. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not cussing or making judgments. It’s just that Nelson is Santa’s Helpful Information Technology - SHIT. It even says so on his badge. The fact that he acts like his acronym makes the computer phobic among us a bit tense when we need his help. Which is ramping up to a daily basis, since our motley crew is a tad techno challenged. My team usually reserves calling Nelson toward the end of our shift, so the next crew can deal with him.

“
Who called last time?”

“I did.”

“Okay, I’ll call Nelson. Why don’t you give the kid’s mom some coupons and send her shopping?”

“What will we do about the line?”

I looked around. A line had already formed. A dozen parents and their charming offspring wriggled in agitation, waiting to get their magical moment with Santa over and done with.

“Give me some coupons.
I’ll handle this.”

I took the coupons and shoved them in my vest pockets.
Then I called Nelson on one of the mall’s walkie-talkies.

“What is it?” he barked.

“We can’t take any pictures and there’s already a line.”

He grunted.
“She rebooted the system again, right?”

“Dunno,” I lied.
“When can you be here?”

“Right behind you.”

I whirled around to see Nelson slinging his walkie-talkie onto the seat next to him as he whirred past me on a golf cart. Which he really didn’t need. He could have used the exercise. Nelson is quite talented, computer-wise. Unfortunately, all those years sitting in front of a computer hasn’t really helped his physique. He rolled off the cart and huffed toward me, and immediately began tapping away on the keyboard to save the day.

“How long do you think it will take?” I gazed nervously at the growing line.

“How do I know?” he snapped.

I held my breath, counted to ten, and began again.
“How long do you think I should advise these families that they’re going to wait?”

“Forever.”

I bit my lip, turned around and headed toward the frustrated mob. While the crowd was comprised of exhausted parents scouring the Earth for bargains, even they had to be less hostile than Nelson.

“Hi! Look folks, Santa’s run into a teensy-weensy technical glitch, so we’ll be a little while
longer before we start taking pictures.”

A
collective groan and various uncomplimentary comments hurtled forth.

“In the meantime,” I yelled above the din, “here are some advance store discount coupons, so you can take a jump on your holiday shopping, and not have to wait in line!”

“I stood on line for two hours last night and you closed up on us! I had to take a vacation day just to get my kid onto Santa’s lap this morning!”

“Hey, me too!”

“Yeah, I thought I recognized you.”

I sighed.
I was wondering how I could get assigned to another shift sans Sheree. “I’m very, very sorry. We’re doing the best we can.” It was lame, but truthful.

An older lady with her
Shirley Temple cloned granddaughter trotted up to me, as I moved down the line doling out coupons. “Excuse me, but you wouldn’t happen to have any coupons for Carols Cards ‘n Wraps?”

I rummaged around and shuffled my
discount deck. “Umm… yes, actually I do.” I held out the coupon. She snatched it from my fingers and hustled away as her grandkid stomped her patent-leather feet. “No, no, no! Grammy’s coming back here with you later, after we find some tape!” she shouted, hustling the tapping child away.

“Tape?” someone in the line called out.
Immediately, several families followed behind, noses toward the ground in search of the scarce commodity.

I put the Cookie Break sign up,
to keep the line from expanding farther while Nelson fixed his sights on keeping us from computer doomsday.

A kid at the
back scowled at me. “I wanna see Santa NOW!”

“Very soon.
Santa’s special computer helper is working on it now.” Even I couldn’t bring myself to call Nelson a SHIT out loud.

The kid snorted.
“That loser couldn’t install a Wii.”

I thought about it.
“Luckily, it’s just a camera setup on a desktop.”

“Loser.”

I stared at the kid, and then looked at his father. The dad was engrossed with texting someone. Hadn’t heard a word. I reciprocated by sticking my tongue out at the brat, and stalked away.

While I usually try to fit in with the Lancaster folk and they’re being
so nice and all, there are some things that just irk the Jersey out of me.

Nelson was right.
After what felt like forever, we were back in business. After Sheree’s technical gaff, we figured it was best if Barry did the picture taking, while she worked the line. I got the happy chore of settling the tots on and off Santa’s lap. Another serving of bruised knees, please.

Eventually the rotten kid’s turn came.
He hopped up onto Santa’s lap and immediately pulled his beard.

“Ow!”

“Hey, it’s real!”

“Of course it’s real, you
little punk! I’m Santa, dammit!”

After the kid recited an expansive list of
high-end computer games and gadgets, he hopped off, stuck his tongue out at me, and kicked me in the shin for emphasis.

“Another name for the lump of coal list!” I shouted after him nastily, rubbing my leg. It was all I could do
since his father had detached from the Borg and stood patting his offspring’s head.

After most of Central
Pennsylvania’s children kicked, puked and peed on me, my shift was done. And so was I. The next shift arrived; we traded places and I limped toward Chi-Chi’s department store.

Shopping while wearing Sparkle was a no brainer
, even if I did smell like slightly used diapers. The store clerks were instructed to add a thirty percent discount toward Sparkle purchases, even on top of sales and coupons. I clutched the precious fifty percent employee coupon I’d received with my last paycheck, and wandered in, holding my breath and hoping my purchases would amount to free – or maybe even cash back?

After
a quick sprint of selective looting and pillaging from Kids Wear to Housewares, I stood in line with my arms aching and full. Package handles and hangers sliced into my fingers like cheese. I was happy.

I made it to the register and dumped my stash on the counter.
“Do you have any coupons?” the clerk asked.

“Yes!” I produced my crumpled half-off coupon from behind the mountain of
merchandise. She took it, then looked at me sympathetically. “Oh, I didn’t see your Santa Sparkle from behind your pile,” she said. “You’re wearing a Chi-Chi button somewhere, right?”

I panicked and fumbled around my vest front at the
fifty or so store buttons pinned to it. It stuck me in the finger and I began to bleed. “Here!” I shoved the button at her with my un-pricked hand, while sucking my thumb.

“Thank you, and here – you
wouldn’t want to bleed on your purchases,” she said nicely, handing me a paper towel.

Well, I guess she has to be nice
. She’s probably a Lancaster native. It still makes me uneasy, especially around the holidays. I mean, who’s nice to you at Christmas? Especially when you’re bleeding.

She rang everything up.
The total came to a little over four hundred dollars. I felt my credit card wilt inside my wallet.

“Now, let’s add your mall employee
coupon, along with your Sparkle discount!” she added brightly.

M
y heart began to beat again and I exhaled.

“That will be $138.80.”

“That’s great!”

“But wait
, there was a fifty percent coupon in the paper.”

I sighed.
“Sorry, I don’t get the paper. I don’t have that coupon.”

“No worries
, we have one here.” She held up a pristinely cut-out coupon, complete with bar code. “Lots of people forget them. The store wants you to come back, see? Now, it probably won’t take because of your other discounts. But let’s try.”

She scanned the coupon and we heard a beep.
She smiled at me. “Your total is $69.40.”

Yippee!

She handed me several miles of receipts along with my bags.

“Oh! Wait! Do you have any boxes?” I asked.

She shook her head.
“Not here, but if you go upstairs to customer service they do. And, if you’re willing to wait in line, just show them your receipt and they’ll wrap everything for free.”’

Free?
Wow. You can’t beat that. I wondered if they’d wrap frozen soup. Maybe if I gave them some? With the money I’d saved, I could splurge and make beef bourguignon for all of Chi-Chi’s staff – it’s to die for.

I took my
stuff and made my way toward the escalator. From there, I schlepped toward the back of the store, and joined the end of a line I sensed was waiting for their free gift wrapping, too. I took my place behind a determined Grandma and her BFF.

“You bet! Why should we buy wrap when they’ll wrap for free?”

“You don’t have to tell me twice. Besides, how’s anyone supposed to wrap with no tape? I can’t find tape anywhere.”

I winced
, remembering my mission for Aunt Muriel. And Trixie. And Bruce. And probably K. Yeeshkabiddle.

We shuffled our way toward the counter.
I was just about four persons in, when a clerk came to the front and shut down the works.

“Hey, what gives?” the grandma in front of me shouted.

“We’ve been waiting in line for an hour!” her buddy added.

A short, pudgy sales manager sporting a mayonnaise
-spotted tie spun around. He cringed and bore it. “Ladies and gentlemen, our apologies. But our gift wrapping services are closed for the day.”

“You’re supposed to stay open as long as Chi-Chi’s stays open!”

He nodded sadly. “Yes, I know. But we’ve run out of tape.”

A
resounding groan ensued.

“Now, if you don’t mind coming back with your merchandise tomorrow, and of course your receipts
; we’re expecting a shipment from our Connecticut store in the morning.”