Ain't sayin' she's a golddigger, but she ain't messin' with no broke, broke...

You hear about those women that date older men. I'm not talking like ten years, or even fifteen, in between them.

I'm talkin' Hugh Heffner style.

A couple came in the store today, and I realised that I've officially seen everything.

Seven feet tall if she's an inch, this blonde bombshell of a Ukrainian (or maybe Russian - I can't tell the difference) walks in, hanging on a sixty-five year old man.

 

Not even hanging, really. Draped. She's practically spooning this guy as they're walking around, looking at stuff.

Old Guy wasn't handsome - certainly no Harrison Ford or Sean Connery, and didn't appear to be that rich. But really, come on. He had to be, to score a woman that just oozed sex.

Seriously. Looking at her brought up the same slightly embarrassed blush that tends to follow getting caught looking at porn. She was sex.

Craziness. Too bad she didn't speak good enough English to get her to crack open Sugar Grandpa's wallet.

I need to learn Ukranian.

Dumpster Diving

I could write about the fact that a sci-fi/comic book memorabilia store opened next to us, and therefore there were superheros walking around all day. (Large amounts of geek made us all very happy.)

I could write about the lady that emotionally vomited all over us because she was "at the edge of sanity" because she went shoe shopping with her friend. (No, I don't get it either.)

But no, I shant write about all of that, because the best thing happened at the end of the night, after we closed the store.

The Boss Lady is in town. She lives out of state, and comes once a month to leave us a towering inferno of boxes, and frazzled nerves. We love her, because she really is a great boss, but the endless unpacking and inventory-taking makes us twitchy.

Georges and I were closing tonight, and had done very well as far as business goes all day long. We geeked out over the new store, laughed about the crazy lady (who suggested we tag her information in the computer as Crazy B*tch - no lie, it was funny), and laughed about the endless bars of soap we had to put away.

Actually, that was mostly Georges, because I forgot an entire pile of soap when alphabetizing them all, and had a small mental breakdown. But that's beside the point.

Good night, all in all. Then it was time to leave.

Because Boss Lady came around, we had a massive pile of broken down boxes to throw in the dumpster when it was time to go. So, we gathered them all up, juggled them out the door, and threw them all in the dumpster.

Then Georges realised he was missing his bottle of pills.

He had shoved the bottle in his pocket before we'd hauled all of the boxes to the dumpster, and so after staring at each other for a minute, he said "...I think they're in there."

Which set me off giggling uncontrollably.

It wasn't nice, and I apologized multiple times, but it was funny!

Before letting him hop in the dumpster, I suggested that we go make sure they hadn't fallen out of his pocket on the way from the store, or even in the store.

On the way back to our shop, we ran into a security guard.

An old, crotchety security guard, with no sense of humour at all.

Me: "Excuse me, have you seen a bottle of pills?" (note: this was said while still giggling like a madwoman)

Guard: "Pills?!"

Me & Georges: "Antibiotics."

(I don't think he believed us.)

They weren't on the sidewalk, they weren't in the store. They hadn't even rolled into the street.

Poor Georges. There was nothing for it, he had to go dumpster diving. (Because there was no way I was getting in there.)

Good thing he's a tall, skinny kid. He was quite agile, actually. I was impressed.

Of course, that was until he hollered "Oh my God! It's wet!"

Cue the giggling again.

To make matters worse, we finally found them. In one of the boxes, right on top of the pile.

Now Georges smells like garbage, and I'm still giggling.

Some people look like their dogs...

We sell ducks.

No, not live ducks. That’d be a mess we have no desire to clean up, thanks.

Rubber ducks. Of all shapes and sizes, types and professions. They border our window sills, and tend to draw people into the store, because for some reason, people will pay two bucks a piece for these silly little lumps of rubber.

I don’t judge.

Occasionally we have Duck Hoarders.

These people will come in, dig through the 983475824 ducks we have, and end up with forty dollars in ducks. Great for our sales, confusing for our opinion of the human race.

I mean really. Who spends that much on ducks?!

Rae and I were at the store, like we do, and this group of people came in, practically crying over the ducks. They bought a handful each, and left perfectly happy with their rubber duckie (you’re the one) take for the day.

There was one straggler, still paying, and the others were looking in the window at him. All of a sudden, his wife, or whatever she was, slams up against the window (Rae says she “beckoned”, but seriously, this woman hit the glass with her face) gesturing wildly at a mermaid duck that we had.

A mermaid duck that we regularly make fun of, for her vibrant off-colour hair, unfortunate breast shape, and tacky pearl necklace.

Then Rae and I looked at the woman in question again.

It was all we could do to not burst out laughing.

Some people grow to look like their spouses, or their dogs.

This woman looked like her duck.

Thank you for calling the Yoga Palace. Please state your position.

There is news that has rocked the bath shop world. We are no longer the Bath Shop Girls, or the Ladies of the Suds, or the...I can't come up with another title that doesn't sound dirty. Anyway. We can no longer be defined by our sex.

There is a man in our midst.

Now don't get me wrong, we wanted a man. We wanted someone tall and strong, because we're a gang of midgets, and our storage room is taller than it is wide. Makes the sale to men easier too, as most of them aren't particularly keen on being in the land of perfumes and bubble bath.

Georges (the French way of spelling it, which never fails to amuse me) is a smart one too, with a cock-eyed sense of humour that fits in perfectly with the insanity that we've already carefully cultivated through months of button-pushing, rule-bending and limit-stretching. We like him, in short.

Yesterday, he told me about a rather interesting phone call that he got the other day.

Georges: "Hi, thanks for calling the bath shop. This is Georges, how can I help you?"

Caller: "When are you guys getting in more scents?"

Georges: "Well, I'm not sure..."

Caller: "Are you going to get a new car smell?"

Georges: "Actually, you can scent your car any way you like."

Caller: "No...A New Car Smell."

Georges: "Oh well, I'm..."

And then the caller hung up, giggling.

Yes, folks. Georges the New Kid got prank-called.

I thought that went out of style in the 90s, but maybe that's just when I stopped doing it.