CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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The Christmas Eve at Sears Story

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

this entry brought to you by pearl jam, "tremor christ"


I was working at Sears. Whenever you bought something that was too large to carry out of the store, you would drive around the side of the building to merchandise pick-up, and I would be the one bringing you stuff out to you. Also, if you ordered something on-line and had it come to our store, this would be the way you would pick it up.

This was by far the worst job I've ever had, and I worked fast food as well. This job was awful. All you have to imagine is the kinds of things people can buy at Sears that would be too big for them to carry around, then imagine the vehicles people drive, put them together, and you have one of the worst jobs you could want that didn't have anything to do with body fluids.

Nevertheless, there were good days. Sometimes all it takes is one person to cheer you up, and you'll be good for the rest of the day, no matter how awful it gets. This was one of those days.

It was Christmas Eve 1999. Business was, predictably, glacier paced. I sat upstairs in the merchandise pick-up office with my friend Kristen, and neither of us had done a thing for hours. A family came in, relatively young, probably about thirty, with two kids, one about eight and the other about four, and they were giddy. They were positively trembling with excitement, and they had a ticket. They explained to me that Grandma lived up in Wisconsin or something, and had ordered them a Christmas present. They had no idea what it would be, but they were bursting with excitement in anticipation for it.

Having had nothing to do for hours, I happily told them that I'd personally go downstairs and get it for them. There were about three guys downstairs in the basement who had been playing poker since the store had opened and had basically done nothing else, and I could've just as well sent one of them to get it, but I was so excited for these people, I myself wanted to go down and hunt for their Christmas gift.

I went down to the cages where we kept ordered items, and when I got to it, I was incredibly dismayed to find it was just a microwave. I was bummed. Leave it to grandma to screw up Christmas. It was a nice microwave, sure, but it wasn't an extravagant one, and I was so disappointed, wishing I could just wing it and grab something else off the shelf, something better, and hand it to them instead, without getting fired.

I loaded it onto the elevator and headed upstairs, and I had already prepared a tone of voice to reveal the microwave-- I had originally intended on walking out backwards so they couldn't initially see it, and turning around and going "Surprise!" but now that it was just a microwave the fanfare didn't matter.

Yet the moment I walked out the door, the entire family exploded into squeals and cheers. "Oh my god she got us a microwave! Oh my god! Oh my goood!", if you can imagine each word in the last sentence being more high pitched with excitement than the last. The children danced around, mom rushed up and gave me a hug, and then dad gave me as hug as well, patting me on the back with great gusto. He then reached down and held the machine up over his head triumphantly, and as I asked if they needed any help to their car, they said no, they'd be fine, and with continued cheering and excitement, walked to their parked car and put it in their trunk.

I walked back inside the office and Kristen was standing there waiting for me. "Was that couple really that excited over a microwave?" she asked.

I couldn't believe it, either. But, baffling as it was, it was still immensely satisfying to have been partially responsible for totally making someone's Christmas wishes come true. Even though those Christmas wishes were amusingly easy to fulfill.
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with love from CRS @ 8:28 AM 

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