Tis the Season.......

This is the time of year when you think people would be friendly and kind to each other. These are not exactly the sentiments I witnessed today while shopping at the mall. I try to avoid the mall most of the year, but particularly so during the holidays. Too many people and not enough room, I feel closed in. But today one of my friends needed some help and asked me to pick up a gold ornament for her, to take to an ornament exchange tonight. So off to Macy's I went, where the ornaments were 40 percent off. I found a lovely glass ornament, striped gold and white, about the size of a softball, very elegant looking. I took it to the gift wrap counter where they told me that there was one person in front of me. I told them I would return in about an hour to pick it up.

I then trotted through the mall to Penneys to look for hoodies for the boys, which were supposedly on sale. They were not to be found, but thats another gripe for another day. After three hours, I returned to Macy's and noticed my ornament was still not wrapped. The customer service wrapping lady told me she would do it next. The other wrapping lady (do they have an official title?) was busy listening to another customer complaining about her wrapping not being done yet. Next thing I know, the customer goes into a tirade so bad, you would have thought they had kidnapped her child or something. She screams so bad, about 15 other customers come from nearby to listen to what is going on. She goes on for over 5 minutes straight, berating this poor little lady trying to wrap these gifts, and the wrapping lady had a major meltdown. She flew out of there through some back door, and apparently was so distraught, they had to call an ambulance to get her to take her to the hospital. Everyone else in customer service runs to the back to help with her. One of the managers of a clothing department came over to try and help wrap presents. I told them I was in no hurry. So while she was wrapping the very first present, she accidentally gouged her wrist with the scissors and blood starts shooting everywhere. Now she is on her way to the hospital to get stitches, because she cut it so bad. Now do you think the other customers there would have the decency to realize the fact that if their presents weren't wrapped today, it wouldn't be the end of the world as we know it? Apparently they were confused and thought that if their gifts weren't wrapped immediately, the earth would stop spinning, because three or four of them started bitching at the other ladies who had come over to help out. They were ugly and very loud. I couldn't help it, I started giggling. I kept thinking, "have they watched the news? Do they realize what is going on in the world today? " I guess not, because they truly acted like they would just friggin die if their gifts weren't given priority over everything else. During this madness, two ladies had requested the same wrapping paper in the same size box. One lady had a men's shirt to be wrapped and the other one had some girls panties and a wallet for her teenage daughter. Well, the lady who came with the men's shirt, left with the teenage panties and wallet and didn't realize it. The male shirt was still there. So I don't know what guy is going to end up opening up the box with the panties and wallet, but boy I bet he will be surprised. I hope its not for someone's boss. At this point, everyone was laughing almost to the point of tears, except for the snot in front of me. She had 14 gifts to be wrapped and so far, they had only completed 7. She chose identical wrapping paper for all 14 boxes. The paper was this hideous olive green and the little ornament looked like a huge yellow teardrop. She calls the head of customer service and requests that all three ladies who are there now, all work on no one else's gifts, but hers. While they are wrapping the rest of her gifts, they are talking about the yellow ornament, and one of them says it looks like a lemon. So the customer went beserk and demanded they take the yellow "lemon" off all her 7 boxes and put something else "Christmasy" on her boxes. They tried to explain that it wasn't really a "lemon" just a yellow ornament that could actually look like a lot of things, like the tear drop of a giant or something. She started screaming and became hysterical. The one wrapping lady who was helping me started laughing so hard, she had tears running down her face. I just wanted to shake this customer and tell her, there are children starving in Africa or something, that it wasn't the end of the world if the recipients of her gifts actually received a pretty "lemon" ornament with their present. But I held my tongue, because you never know what kind of crazy people you are dealing with. Even though she was a 60ish caucasian lady, she could have been packing an uzi in her bag, or worse yet, she could be the wife of one of my upper management level bosses. So I just snickered as she huffed and puffed her way on out of the store.

At that point, I figured I better get my ass out of that store and home where I will be safe and sound away from the mean people of the world. If I ever completely lose my mind over the gift wrapping on a present I have bought for someone, please feel free to have me Baker acted.