All Or Nothing

All Hail

Guess what I'm writing to you on.  Guess!

No, not that.

No, not that either.

Uh, NO.

Yes!  Yes, you got it!

Tell me something really cool I can do now that I am the proud owner of this brand spankin' new Macbook. 

Teach me your favorite Apple function.

Write Me Back Soon, Still BFF?

Dear Internet,

How are you?  How was your pre-Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, and post-Thanksgiving?  Good?  I hope it was good.

Did you eat a lot of great food?  See your various extended family?  Have any awkward experiences with any of them?  I'll bet you've got some really funny stories to tell.

I spent the vast majority of this past week in the store or on the phone with various wholesalers, ordering and re-ordering merchandise.  I think my favorite telephone conversation included me saying "NO, my name is NOT 'Amy Taylor'.  No, don't write that down.  No!  Don't send that to the factor.  They'll never know what name....NO!  Do you speak any English?"  And then the other person replied "Yadda yadda bleh blah, something Chinese, Amy Taylor?"  I love the fashion industry.  It's just so glamorous.

I thought of you this morning on my way into work.  I was standing in line at Starbucks, waiting on my venti soy caramel macchiato with sugar-free vanilla instead of the caramel and no sauce on top, please, and had the chance to overhear a conversation between a teenage girl and her mother.  The girl was worried about ordering a frappuccino, because of the massive caloric content she would have to deal with, and right after Thanksgiving, too.  The mom didn't feel that the calorie concern was valid, as the girl shouldn't worry about her weight; she looked great.  I agreed on this point, feeling happy to see such a healthy mother/daughter interaction, and thinking that all girls should be so lucky.  And then the mother said "Besides, I'll just give you a couple of your brother's Adderall like we did after Jamie's birthday party and you remember all the cake you ate that night - didn't even matter, girlfriend!"  And then they both laughed manically.  I thought that was such a touching story, and I just knew you would appreciate it.

So I've officially made it through the busiest week of the retail season.  Black Friday was insanely busy.  Why do they call it Black Friday, anyway?  I thought that reference usually entailed something negative, but as far as retailers go, there's nothing negative about the Friday after Thanksgiving.  Do you know?

I've got tons of stories from the week, too.  I'll try and think of my best ones and write to you about them as soon as possible.  For now, though, I'll leave you with this, my favorite encounter of today:

Me:  So, here are the black pants, is this what you were looking for?

Customer:  No, I want PARTY pants.

Me (trying to envision what something called "party pants" could possibly look like):  Ummm....party pants.  Ok, so, party pants.  Like pants with more embellishment, or rhinestones or something?

Customer (exasperated):  No, not embellished.  Party pants!

Me:  So....not black, maybe?  Maybe a different color?

Customer:  I said I wanted BLACK PARTY PANTS.  Is this all you have?  Are these your only pants in the entire store?

Me (glancing pointedly at the 6 racks, 3 stands, and 2 tables of pants DIRECTLY in front of the customer):  Uh, well, no....we have several other options...but these are our black trousers....there are lots of denim and different colored options...

Customer (really annoyed now):  Oh, FORGET IT.  I can't believe you don't have party pants.  Black pull-on (ed: ahh, so now they are "pull-on" as well as "party") party pants; what kind of a store doesn't carry those?  Can't you order them for me?

Me (imagining what hell I would have to go through trying to figure out what in the world "party pants" were and trying to order only one pair of said pants):  No.  There's no way I could order them.  The ordering season is over. (ed: why I said this, I have no idea.  The "ordering season" is over?  Like, wow, all the stores shut down, and hey!  No more orders!  Sorry, America!)

Customer:  Oh.  Well that's too bad.  I really need a pair of party pants.  I can't believe you don't have any.  I bet you have customers asking for them all the time, and you don't provide them.  Any good store has party pants.  It's Christmas!

Me:  Yeah, I'm really sorry about that.  Is there anything else I can help you with?

Customer:  No, but you should turn the air down in here.  It's sweltering!  And I know it's not just me, I can tell those girls in the fitting rooms are burning up (ed: the woman hadn't ever been near the back of the store, where the fitting rooms are located, nor had she had any kind of contact with the people trying clothing on in the fitting rooms).  You aren't going to have any customers left at all if you keep it so hot.  So hot, and no party pants.  It's a wonder you're in business at all.

Love,

Elise

You Know, Because It's Like "Tooth-Hurty". See, It's Dumb.

Guess what time it is.  Go ahead, guess.  And NO, do NOT say 2:30 and then tell me your silly, silly joke about how it's time to go to the dentist.  I hate that one.

No really, this is what time it is:  It's time for me to shamelessly steal from Janet (it's ok, I asked permission first...or did I?  Haha!  And she's in MEXICO on her HONEYMOON, so WHO CAN COMPLAIN, REALLY?).  Anyway, I am stealing Love and Hate from Janet, so here we go:

Love:  That it's FINALLY cool enough outside that I can stop giving expository speeches on how the long jackets in my store really WILL come in handy one of these days, I promise!  And are you going on vacation, because surely it is cold SOMEWHERE in November, right?

Love: That this morning my husband announced the exact amount of time we have been married including days, months, and years, informed me that the number was "special", and told me he was taking me out for a date.

Love (and kinda hate):  That our date has now morphed into "going to Sam's Club to buy groceries. But together! And date-like!"

Hate:  That both my husband and I own our own businesses (bad idea!  Never do this!) and we NEVER HAVE TIME to just hang out and do whatever we please.  So our together-time turns into things like "I'll Work At This Table and You'll Be Right There at That One Sorta Close By" and "Let's Go Change The Oil Together!"

Love:  That one of my little brothers is getting married!  And maybe in February!  Which is very soon!

Hate:  That I cannot stop using exclamation marks!  Like a 15 year old!  OMG!  BFF!  Ugh.

Love AND Hate:  That I have this wonderful (paid!) writing job, but I am having a horribly hard time getting into a really good writing schedule.

Hate:  The weird salesman who has called my store no less than 5 times today proclaiming You must buy this product, it is the only product that I will guarantee, and I just know you will make so much money from it that you will be sending me flowers to thank me and then the Super Fabulous Product In Question changes with every new phone call.  Ummm, it's called trust, dude, and I'm not sure you've got mine.

Love:  My Internet friends.  Seriously, I know this lands me squarely at the crossroads of Dorkshire Lane and Cheesy Boulevard (wow, certainly there now), but the emails and comments, and (sometimes!) real live mail you send me totally makes my day.  Plus, you are all hilarious and kick major ass.  Yeah, I'm talking about you.  And you!

So give it to me straight.  What do you Love and Hate today?

Now Available For Immediate Purchase

In honor of Allison's suggestion, allow me to present:

 

Place your orders accordingly.

No, No, NOT The Funky Chicken

You know when you're super hungry and all you can think about is Chick-fil-A?  And then you realize it's Sunday, and those crazy religious crazies aren't open.

Well, that's not what happened to me.  I was super hungry, and all I could think abut was Chick-fil-A, but it was a MONDAY!  Nothing would keep me from the glorious golden poultry.  I purchased my sandwich, took a big bite, and...

Dirty chicken.

I don't know how else to explain the foul and rank flavor that, upon occasion, will fill my mouth when I am innocently trying to eat Chick-fil-A's chicken other than to call it Dirty Chicken.  I would try to elaborate further, but you're either going to completely understand what I'm saying or you're not.

So, how 'bout it?  Have you ever tasted the Dirty Chicken?

Strangely, The Word "Hindsight" Doesn't Make Me Think Of Anything

Ok, so no more about clothes, or the Junior League, or anything at all related to the store.

I will say, however, that UPS wasn't quite satisfied with the major screw-over they gave me on Friday, and went ahead and didn't get me my package on Saturday either.  Saturday, as in I paid both overnighting fees AND Saturday-delivery fees, totaling over $100, for my poor dad to sit alone in my house all morning and wait on the United Probably-not-gonna-deliver-this Service to NOT show up.

(Sidenote:  I did get some kind of sick vindication from reading your horrible experiences with this pathetic outfit.  What can I say, misery loves company.)

Today, I am having a lazy, lazy day.  After I finished the show out yesterday (I know, I know, I said no more.  I lied.  I also didn't post yesterday, so I am breaking all kinds of promises - I'm such a rebel!), we broke down the booth and moved it all back to the store in a record time of TWO HOURS.  Two hours!  I couldn't believe it.  That means that we were entirely done with everything at 7pm.  My family is awesome, and they all work for free.  Ha, speaking of working for free, my most favorite girl to work with in the world worked with me all day Friday and Saturday and ended up owing ME money, she took so many clothes home with her.  Now that's what I call a great employee.

Anyhow, we got done at 7pm, and all proceeded to celebrate with copious amounts of wine, a great dinner, mojitos and more wine.  I fell into bed at about 1am with the plan of not getting up until sometime this evening.  Unconscionably lazy, right?  Just wait.  It gets much, much worse.

I woke up at about 9:45am and decided that I was starving.  Not wanting to do any actual work to obtain some breakfast, I decided to order a pizza.  But!  The pizza delivery place near here doesn't actually open until 10:30am.  Imagine, not serving pizza for the hungry breakfast crowd.  I was understandably taken aback, but, questionable business practices aside, went ahead and put in my order.  I was able to order my pizza pre-10am, because the online site (read: too lazy to pick up the phone - see, I told you it would get worse) offers some kind of "Order Ahead of Time!" option that I assume caters solely to those of us so incredibly lazy or fat that we cannot manage to wait the extra 30 minutes it would take for the store to OPEN.  Ahh, American culture at its best.

My pizza arrived at about 11am.  You might think, wow, she had to wait a long time to get her pizza, and hey, didn't she mention she was starving upon waking up?  (Actually I can't imagine ANY of you thinking that, you are probably gagging if you are still reading this, wondering how you ever thought you might like someone as self-indulgent and unimpressive as me.)  But don't worry.  I assuaged my hunger before my pizza arrived by eating ice cream straight out of the carton.  Yes, that's right, I did get out of bed in order to procure the ice cream, but I did not find it necessary to go to all the trouble of grabbing a bowl and doing all that scooping and metering out nonsense. 

When my pizza arrived, I dragged myself back out of bed (oh, the effort!), put my ice cream back in the freezer (how industrious of me), and got myself a plate and some napkins.  I even had the foresight (I hate that word so much, it always makes me think of "foreskin") to grab a towel from the bathroom counter to drape over my bedspread so that if (when) I got a little messy with the pizza I wouldn't have to do any unnecessary laundry.  Because obviously it would be asking too much for me to eat the pizza anywhere other than the bed, under the covers, with my laptop, cell phone, and remote control at the ready.

L-A-Z-Y.

Lance Armstrong, in his most recent commercial:
"Remember me, cancer?  You made me suffer.  My mom too."

That's great Lance, and I am as happy as the next person that you survived your battle with cancer.  But "My mom too" is NOT a sentence, and if you want to do national TV spots, you MIGHT want to take the time to hire a good editor and make sure that all 15 seconds of your monologue are comprised of real and non-fragmented sentences.

In light of this commercial gaffe it becomes clear that while I might be immoderately lazy, I am not as lazy as Lance.  And, as we all know, Mr. Armstrong has made a career for himself by being incredibly active, winning Tour de France's and such.  So if, on a Scale of Laziness, Elise < Lance Armstrong, then that makes me pretty damn impressive, if you ask me.

And the towel/tablecloth?  Great idea, as it turned out.

I've Been UPSed! YouPeeEsssed! You Pissed? You Betcha!

Every show (yes, I'm still talking about this, shut up), there is a certain item that everyone wants.  An item that people go crazy over, that women swoon at the sight of and men sigh resignedly and hand over their wallets without even arguing because it's THAT good.  We like to call this item the hot ticket.  Well, this year, the hot ticket was this little kimono style dress I bought in two color combinations.  I would post a picture but because I have now sold this dress out two days in a row (30 dresses each time) I have no image available. Luckily, the company I got this dress from is the awesome sort who will overnight ship things to you and are therefore making me lots of money.  Yea for the kimono dress company!  I have another shipment of the dresses overnighting to me this evening as well, and will try my best to take a picture of my hot ticket before they sell out again tomorrow (knock on wood). 

The other hot ticket for me this show has been headbands.  I had a huge basketfull of headbands on Thursday morning, and by about 4pm that afternoon I think I had 5 headbands left.  Obviously a hot ticket, right?  So obviously I should reorder.  And that's exactly what I set forth to do, reorder the headbands, and go on with my selling.  I placed my order with the headband company, who assured me that they would be awesome and overnight ship 200 headbands to me and that they would be at my store by 10am Friday (this) morning.  I was at my store at exactly 10am this morning.  The UPS man was also at my store at exactly 10am this morning.  The headbands, however, were not.

This is the message Cody got when he was finally able to maneuver through about 5 different language barriers and find out where the package was, exactly, since where it WASN'T, EXACTLY, was in my booth, being sold. 

Package Progress
Location	Date	Local Time	Description
LONG BEACH, CA,  US	11/10/2006	6:42 P.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN
LOS ANGELES, CA,  US	11/10/2006	6:10 P.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
	11/10/2006	12:09 A.M.	THE PACKAGE WAS LEFT IN A UPS FACILITY CAUSING THIS DELAY;FORWARDED TO THE FACILITY IN THE DESTINATION CITY
	11/10/2006	12:09 A.M.	ORIGIN SCAN
LOS ANGELES, CA,  US	11/09/2006	4:07 P.M.	PICKUP SCAN
US	11/09/2006	9:34 P.M.	BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

Tracking results provided by UPS:  11/10/2006 10:48 P.M.  EST (USA)

My favorite part, really, is where it says THE PACKAGE WAS LEFT IN A UPS FACILITY CAUSING THIS DELAY; FORWARDED TO THE FACILITY IN THE DESTINATION CITY and then shows that it went to Long Beach.  My store, for the uninformed, or for the UPS EMPLOYEES, is in TEXAS. 

You know, Texas.  That big state at the bottom of the map, the one that isn't actually very near LONG BEACH CALIFORNIA.

Here She Goes Again

Yesterday, I worked from 9am - 11:45pm. 

Today, I only worked from 9am - 9:30pm. 

Tomorrow, I will work from 9am - 9:30pm. 

Saturday, I will work from 8:30am-5pm and then pack up my entire booth full of clothing, accessories, shoes, decorations, and fixtures, move it all back to my store, and set it back up again there.  Probably a 16 hour day, conservatively guessing.

And you want to know the REALLY crazy thing?

I love it.  I am so lucky to be in this show, and even though it is mind-searingly exhausting, I love every second of it. (Kyle, I will explain the mechanics of Mistletoe and Magic in detail after it is over and I have the use of more than two of my brain cells for anything other than selling clothes.  See, how that sentence totally sucked?  No brain cells!)

If only I could get my feet to agree.  Help me out, friends.  What is your very best remedy for super sore and aching feet?  Whatever you tell me I will do, because I trust you inherently and you have never led me astray (hello, Macbook?).  But really - help.  The feet.  They are very, very angry with me.

Are YOU A Member Of The Junior League?

This is getting ridiculous.  I can't imagine any month being busier than this November in the history of the world, ever.  I mean, seriously.  It's NaWriNoMo, NaWriBloMo, last month of marathon training, and Mistletoe and Magic month.

Mistletoe and Magic.  That's a whole other story, seriously.  Basically, it's like a giant garage sale, only with about 100 different garages involved and if the people who owned the garages were selling, say, $300 belts and $600 jackets.  My boutique has a booth in Mistletoe and Magic, and it SUCKS EVERY MOMENT OF MY LIFE AWAY.  Tonight was the Preview Party, which really means lots of rich socialites who want to have a reason to have a party.  There's really good food and open bar all night, which is good for shopping and fun for me.  Cody always enjoys it because he insists that we get our money out of the whole deal in his Preview Party alcohol consumption alone. 

But anyway, Mistletoe and Magic is really, really time consuming.  I promise, I am not being a posting slacker in the least.  And I'm also not doing that horribly annoying thing I mentioned in that other post the other day.  From 9am-9pm, for the next three days, my life is OWNED.  And do you want to know who owns me, technically?

The Junior League.

Yeah.  Let the madness begin.

Relatively Annoying, Part II

Ha!  I am loving the comments from the weird/intimidating/annoying/horrible relative post.

And yet, according to the rules of the game, I have to post again.  I'm in a quandry.  Luckily, I just had an idea.

The snippets of conversation (Helen - "Come 'ere you, PHWARRRR! If I wasn't your uncle..." and Susan -  "and no I don't think his vaccinations 'caused' it" and Hannah - "What...does Josh not pleasure you enough?") are totally cracking me up.

So, in keeping with the theme, give me the weirdest snippet (the more out of context the better) you've ever heard a relative say, OR (if you're really feeling witty) what you're likely to hear the next time you have to encounter that person. Fun for everyone!

I'll start (this one is in conversation format):

"Hey mom, do you have any Kleenex?  Or Grandma, do you?"

(digging through purses ensues)

"No, honey, I don't - maybe Grandma does, she's still looking,"

"Nope, I don't have any either...but I could take my panties off for ya."

Yow!