1. ME: Would you like a bag?

THEM: If you’ve got one.

Of course I’ve got one. I work in a fucking shop. And I offered you one.

1. ME: Would you like a bag?

THEM: Can you spare one?

Well, I’ll be a wall less on the bag fort I was making, but I guess I’ll have to make a sacrifice.

1. ME: Would you like a bag?

THEM: No thanks, I’ve got my own.

I don’t so much hate this phrase, as hate the look of smugness that the customer just can’t help plaster on their face after having said it.

1. ME: *folding a jumper*

THEM: You must do that a thousand times a day.

Yes. And yet you still make a mess! I also hear that joke a thousand times a day.

1. ME: *mundane tasks*

THEM: I’ve left some clothes that I don’t want in the fitting room.

Ok, kudos to you for letting me know, but… you walked halfway across the shop to tell me that. Could you not have brought me the clothes?

1. ME: *doing shit*

THEM: About six years ago, a got a coat from one of your shops in… I think it was Rhyl… Or was it Paignton? Or was it… Anyway, do you still stock them?

If you got it six years ago, do you honestly think we still stock them? Also, I DON’T CARE WHERE YOU GOT IT FROM.

1. ME: *hanging myself from boredom*

THEM: Excuse me, I was in your shop in Oobly Floobly the other day and they had a black jacket, why don’t you have it?

Well, either we do have it and you didn’t look, or you should have bought it from the shop you saw it in.

Anyway, if everyone could refrain from saying these things to me, you would make my job a lot happier.

Watching that video is the closest I will ever come to entering a haunted house, or going on a ghost train. I won’t even go near them if I can help it.

On a recent trip to Alton Towers, during a momentary lapse of judgement, I declared: “You know what, I might go on the ghost train.” My friends, not really realising what a massive leap this was, seemed to shrug and readily accept this, whilst in my mind I was already thinking “WHAT THE HELL!? I didn’t agree to that! What were you thinking, brain?!” Walking over to the end of the queue, I started asking questions.

“Is it really dark?” “Do loads of things jump out at you?” “Can I hide if I’m scared?” “Am I going to die?”

You know. All the usual things.

After a “No, no, yes, no” response, I woussed out. Although I kicked myself whilst bumming around in the shop waiting for everyone, I think I knew all along that I wouldn’t really go on it. Where my irrational fear comes from, I’ll never know, but I DO know that the only time I DID go on a ghost train, I spent the entirety of the ride hidden under my Dad’s coat, who laughed over my screams and sobs. Not in a nasty way. Just in the way that I’d laugh at someone throwing up after they got off a rollercoaster.

I think I’ve heard every line that there is now, in an attempt to coax me onto the bastard things.

“They’re not real ghosts you know.” I know. But fuck you. They still scare me.

“It’s dark, you can’t see anything.” So the ride is a train track in the dark? Fuck off.

“Look, that little kid is going on it.” Yes. And if said little kid is like me, it’ll be their first and last time.

“You can hold my hand.” Thank you, but I’d be afraid of ripping off your armto beat the monster to death if it got too close.

I even got scared on the shitty build up to the ride Hex, which made me slightly ashamed. A darkened room and a disembodied voice just really freak me out. And when my friend (Thanks MIKE) is making death metal growl noises behind me, it’s not really going to help. I became convinced that something was going to lunge out of the dark at me. The gaggle of school girls (wearing far too short skirts, but that’s another blog) in front of me started screaming and my heart rate felt like it was going off the scale. I knew deep down that they were probably only being groped by a paedo in a raincoat grabbing his chance in the dark, but I couldn’t shake my genuine fear that an anamatronic zombie was going to lunge at me at any second.

This is another thing that I don’t understand about my phobia. I know that none of the things jumping out are real (apart from the REALLY terrifying ones when they employ people to scare the living fuck out of you) but they still made me feel like they’ve threatened to slit my throat. On a trip to Warwick Castle when I was about 8, I had to be ushered though the main castle with my Mum holding her hand over my eyes. Why? Because each room was full of waxworks. Once again, my Dad found this very amusing, and it was during this screaming/shouting/laughing hullabaloo that a lady working in the castle came over, offered me a tissue and asked if I liked Barbie. Being a girlie girl then, I answered yes, and stopped sobbing quite so much. The kind lady (who’s name I think was Vera… Or… Violet… Some old fashioned v-name) took my hand and lead me over to a waxwork, against my will. She pointed to it and said, “Look, it’s just a giant Barbie. See?” She poked her to prove that she wouldn’t move, and smiled at me. My Mum thanked her very much for stopping me crying, and then went back to thank the lady again when I asked if we could go through the castle once more. But the lady LIED. They weren’t all waxworks, and somewhere there’s a photo of me screaming running away from the ‘waxwork’ that had grabbed me as I posed by it split seconds before.

Maybe it’s a deeper rooted phobia than I thought. But… Just never try to get me on one.

Give me the highest, fastest, twirliest, upside-downiest rollercoaster you like. Just NEVER try to get me on a ghost train.

So anyways, I get there in the morning to be told that I need to have a talk about customer service because the bosses have gone and had a meeting about it and now we need to pounce on customers as soon as they walk in and throw woolly jumpers at them. Anyway, I went and had this stupid shitty talk thing, and then all of a sudden, Sharon looks at me and says, “And as for you playing noughts and crosses last week, that was really off. I mean, I know Sundays are quiet, but there’s always something to do.” At this point I’m really confused, because, well, I wasn’t in last week. I tell her this and she looks at me like I’ve just told her she has shit on her shirt. I know Sharon, and therefore I know how much she hates apologising, and I mean she REALLY hates it. So imagine the smile on my face when she has to look me in the eye and say “Sorry.” That’s the first time I’ve grinned that much in a long time.

After this ‘telling off’ I head downstairs to do some actual work. I have one woman come up to me after I’ve been there about an hour and say, “Do you call this music?!” I pause for a moment to listen to what is playing (You’ll Never Walk Alone by Gerry and the Pacemakers) and then smile at her, thinking that she was joking. She wasn’t.

“Don’t you smile at me you insolent girl!”

Shit.

“I can’t believe how loud they let you play this rubbish!”

Sorry, how high is the volume on your hearing aid?

“I was going to buy a cardigan, but now I’m going to go to Marks and Spencers where they play nice music!”

That’s it, go and listen to the nice arse-pipes or whatever it is they play in there. Walk aaaaaall the way up Pride Hill just to bum Marks and Spencers’ music. You don’t pay my wages you stupid bint.

After about three hours of doing nothing, going on my lunch break and breaking a plate, the final instalment of funniness occurs. I’m not sure if that sentence makes sense, but please, if it doesn’t, feel free to re-arrange it in your head.

For the last couple of hours I was ‘working’ (read pottering around not doing anything in particular) upstairs, and wasn’t paying a lot of attention to what was going on when I heard a kind of crash-squelch-squeal. Looking up from the nothing that I was doing, I can just about see that sticking out from underneath the belt stand is a young boy’s arm and head. Hmm. Now, either this young child has a belt fetish and this was purposeful, or this kid’s knocked it over. His dad is very unimpressed either way.

“HUGO! You stupid boy! Get up from there now!”

The dad (who is wearing Wellingtons, and it’s not even raining) hauls the belt stand up and rescues his son, and then starts shouting at him to apologise. The sobbing squashed child does so, and I stand there claiming (in a very British manner) that it doesn’t matter and that somehow it was my fault. I do feel REALLY sorry for the kid, after all, he has just has about six thousand belts fall on top of him as well as a heavy metal stand.

And his name’s HUGO for fuck’s sake.

Anyway, picking them up (one at a time) gave me something to do till closing time.

Everything you need to know about me is in my about me on my profiley bit.  Apart from the fact that that:  I have two jobs, one of which will frequently appear here;  I have a fantastic boyfriend called Andy, and that I make up lots of words.  And I live in Shrewsbury.  And I have two cats and a dog.  And I’m 20.

Ok, so maybe it’s not all in that bit.  But most of it is.

Anyway.

Bye.

*tralalalalala*