You know something I just hate?

Charles was at the Christ Chapel high school Christmas party this evening, and all the kids are supposed to bring what amounts to a gag gift. I believe he took a used video game.

Anyway, he called a little while ago, desirous of being picked up because he wound up with fish.

One had already died.

If there is ONE thing I loathe, it's people giving livestock as gag gifts. Or as prizes at game booths. You cannot imagine how many fish we've watched die over the years, requiring consolation and soothing of disappointed distraught children.

I remember that Camp Fire (a group with which I was heavily involved) would have a Haunted Weekend at Camp El Tesoro sometime around Halloween. There was always some game booth that featured fish.

Speaking with other parents whose children excitedly hauled home a plastic bag containing water and fish, not a single fish ever survived more than a day or two.

Used to call it the Haunted Weekend and Fish Kill.

One of the bits I like best about retail is merchandising.

I dig it. ;->

There's an alpha (which is a narrow fixture of glass shelving, called an alpha for no discernible reason that I can find) next to the china wrapstand, and it's supposed to have inexpensive Christmas stuff on it.

Well, we'd had some $5.99 Mikasa things on it - small bowls and trays - and they'd sold WAY down.

So I suggested to my manager that we put the Holly Holiday salt and pepper sets on it, instead. They're selling for $3.99, and we had a slew of them.

[smugly] Note the past tense . . . had.

By golly, they've sold like mad! People who had been ignoring them when they were with the rest of the Holly Holiday display were snapping them up in multiples.

They're nearly gone now.

Why? Why, why, WHY?

Why do people have to open boxes for no discernible reason?

We try hard to make sure there is a display provided for examination of each item we sell, with available stock conveniently at hand.

Will someone please . . . I'm begging here . . . explain to ol' Five Watt why I am constantly having to try to neatly repackage perfectly good merchandise that's been hauled out of its box and then left on the fixture? If it were flawed, so another was selected, I could understand it. But invariably there's not a thing wrong with it.

It's virtually impossible to repackage the item in the same way it was done at the factory.

This doesn't just happen in hard goods. Oh my, no. I remember years ago I was helping with recovery in the men's department at Foley's/Parks. Had just spent twenty minutes totally redoing a sweater fixture . . . neatly folding each sweater and stacking them by size. As soon as I moved to the adjacent fixture, darned if a woman didn't come up and proceed to lift up, shake out, then dump back at least half the sweaters I'd just worked on!

The kicker?

The pest didn't buy a one of 'em. :^(