Now we know where all the customers had gotten to over the holiday season: they were all frozen in snowdrifts, unable to escape. But this weekend the temperature, to our amazement, actually stayed above freezing for two nights running. And the customers awoke, spotted the strange green patches on their lawns, and came lumbering out of their icy crypts, arms outstretched, moaning “Boooks… Booooooks…”
Of course, we had the same staffing as last week, when no sane creature dared brave the weather, so the store was churning with more activity than we could handle. The lines from the registers extended almost all the way back to the cafe. Phones rang without cease, sounding both belligerent and mournful. Customers swirled about, looking for workers, all of whom were tied up with yet other customers.
Midday, in a single minute, calls went out over the walkies for assistance to the phones, the registers, the information desk, and the cafe. To have tried to handle them, however, would have resulted in our merely shifting one bit to the right, with a single worker each at the registers, the information desk, the cafe, and the phones. And the change of state would have been pretty much useless, since we couldn’t even really have used the minimal heat that the movement would have given off.
Fortunately, the customers were mostly in good moods. Most waited in lines at the registers as needed, or drifted like loose particles around the information desk until a worker was available.
Although I hadn’t been scheduled for the registers at all, I got stuck there for close to three hours, including a stretch of over an hour past the time that I had originally been scheduled to leave. One worker apparently hadn’t confirmed the week’s schedule and hadn’t show up. The rest of us shifted around to cover the gap, which meant, among other things, that our sole manager was busy making drinks in the cafe for much of our first hour.
Not only were there more customers than expected, but an unusual number needed us to wrap their gifts. At one point, when I was at the register, I called for an additional person to ring. He handled several customers, then got one who needed gifts wrapped. He gamely headed over to the wrap station and wrapped their presents. (Oddly, we still had Chanukah wrapping paper among our options, and I saw the customers requesting it, well over a month late.)
My next customer also needed a gift wrapped. Rather than tying both of us up while I waited for my coworker to finish wrapping (since the wrap station can only accomodate one worker at a time), he agreed to wrap that customer’s gift. Then my next customer needed gift wrapping. And the next. And the one after that.
The customer after that one carefully maneuvered a tower of children’s books to the registers and plunked it down in front of me. “Are any of these gifts?” I asked warily.
“Oh they all are!” she said “I have a birthday party happening, and there are fifteen girls back there. These are for them.” OK, that answered the mystery of what the distant shrieking and chirping sounds from near the cafe had been. “I’ll need gift receipts. But I don’t need them wrapped.” That was a relief; if my colleague at the wrap station would have been inspired to kill me when I would have brought the stack over, we would have been even more short-handed.
Several of the girls came over and bought things later on. Two of them insisted on finding out, as a matter of the utmost importance, when and how we would be celebrating Elmo’s Birthday. Apparently, we had started advertising some sort of a party. I managed to direct them to someone else who actually knew. (In digging out that link, I found that his actual birthday has passed, but it will be celebrated some weeks from now. Time waits for no muppet.)
Others were picking up the usual array of non-book items: duck magnets, tiny electronic screaming monkeys, pens with strange shiny things attached, bits of cheap jewelry made to resemble those mentioned in the Twilight books, and a new favorite item, Smencils. Yes, those are scented pencils. Somewhere, demented elves are creating these things.
I actually did manage to get some book and music selling in amidst all the ringing. One customer was very pleased that I was able to help her choose among Mahalia Jackson collections. Another was less happy when we turned out not to have any Yma Sumac albums in stock that he didn’t already have, but was gratified that I was able to dig out information, at least, about two of his favorite singers, though it turned out that their albums might be impossible to find outside of Poland and Ukraine. (Wasn’t that, until recently, “the Ukraine”? Saying “outside of Poland and Ukraine” feels like saying “must find moose and squirrel.”)
When I got out of work at abut 4:30, I was somewhat disoriented to see that the sun was still out. That hadn’t happened after a full day’s work for quite a while. I trodded out to the bus stop, ducking around the remaining mounds of muddy slush and snow.
And now I’m hanging out at a coffee shop, writing this, about to head home. I’m trying to enjoy this warmth while we have it. It’s supposed to go back below freezing tonight, which means that whatever has thawed but not yet drained away will turn into ice, and footing will be tricky again in the morning.
Maybe the customers, once in motion, will remain in motion. Or maybe they will retreat to their snow palaces to hide again. If so, I’ll know to get enough sleep before we brave the next big thaw.
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“Ukraina” (four syllables) is Russian for “borderland”, so the region used to be called “the Borderland” in plain English, or “the Ukraine” in half English, half anglicized frenchified Russian. Now it’s a separate place with a separate name of its own, so an article is no longer appropriate, any more than in “the Lebanon” or “the Argentine”. In Russian and Ukrainian itself, this is a distinction without a difference, as these languages have no articles, but English-speakers from Ukraine insist on it.
In general, countries, like continents and provinces but unlike regions (”the Middle East”, for example) and rivers, don’t have articles in their names. There are exceptions, like The Gambia and The Bronx, which are named after their respective rivers and keep the article. Even the U.S., though, is officially “[some but not necessarily all] United States of America”, with no article.
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