I have been at work for just over an hour and all this has already transpired:

A regular comes in and I ask if he’s ready for Christmas.  

“NEVER!”  He goes on, “My wife asks me for the most impossible things!  This year she asked for two feeder calves!”  At this, he rolls his eyes.  “All the feeder calves I’ve seen are going for like two THOUSAND dollars!  So I get to messin’ around on the internet and I finally found ONE for three hundred and fifty dollars.”

“Well, that’s good!” I chirp.

“Yeah, but it took me half the day to find it and it was on the other side of Clinch Mountain so it took the other half of the day to go get it and bring it back. And he only had the one. While I was there, I bought a turkey.  So I guess she’s getting a calf and a turkey for Christmas.”

 I’m hee-hawing.  He continues, “Usually I ask her and she’ll come out with the most outrageous things.  Like, ‘happiness!’.  Give me a break.  It’s always a major undertaking.  And then I go to the trouble of getting it and she says, ‘Oh, I wish you hadn’t gotten me this…you could have just gotten me {Whatever}.”

At this point, I can tell his head is on the verge of exploding just talking about it. “Why didn’t you TELL me?!?!”

And she’ll say,”Well, I hinted…”

Women: get a clue.  Men don’t take hints.  Spell it out for them.

PART TWO:

“Sales, could I help you?”

“Yes, the batteries you have on sale, are they alkaline?”

“Uhhhmmmm….” I will be the first to admit I’m not always abreast of the sales.  So I’m stalling for time, grabbing for the small sales flyer on the counter.  

“Is it a car battery or….????”

“They’re $4.99.  On the back page of the paper.”

“Back page of the Cooperator or the Mountain Press?”

“The Mountain Press.”

I look around wildly.  I’m all alone.  I call John, who sometimes does advertising.  No answer.  Of course.  I wouldn’t answer the girl who made up a song about me & an alpaca, either.  Here comes Dylan.  He has no idea, but joins in the search via promos in inventory.  I call Clint, who just thinks it’s funny. 

“Brion, you got batteries on sale?” he asks, aside to the tire shop manager who was evidently upstairs with him.

“No.” Comes the answer.

“What kind of batteries is it?” Back to me.

“He’s asking me! I don’t know!  I would imagine small ones if they’re $4.99…”

“Right.  We got those Duracells in…”

“Yeah, but they’re coming up $5.99.”

“Is he the first one to call?”

“Yes, but it’s still pretty early in the day…”

“Go out & buy a paper.”

“I don’t think we sell them anymore since we quit getting it.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, and I’m by myself I can’t even go look.”

“Ok, I’ll come down there.”

“Wait!  Here’s Terry.  I’m on it.”  I hang up.  “Terry, you’re in charge,” I direct, grabbing a dollar in quarters & dashing out the door.

“Check!”  Terry says, manning my post.

The dang machine takes my dollar.

I dash back in.  “Am I free to go?” Terry asks, at attention with his mop.

“No.”  I grab another four quarters, tell the man on the phone I haven’t forgotten about him, amd here I go back out.  The machine opens, I got my other quarters back, & a paper.

“Ok, I’m back,”  I inform everyone.  “Sir, I have today’s Mountain Press in my hand.  You say it’s on the back page?”

“Yes.  Of the sale paper.  The seventeenth.  Says it’s the last day.”

“Ummm…” this is where things are looking suspicious. “I don’t see anything.”  The back is a full page ad for Leconte Medical Center, which is where I’m fixing to need to be sent, probably to the psychiatric ward, or at least back to the cardiologist.

“You don’t see it?” His voice is incredulous. “The Jobsmart batteries?”

Jobsmart?  That’s not a brand we’ve ever stocked…We don’t have a sale paper in the paper this week.  I’m beginning to think he’s got an old paper. “I have Belk, CVS, Kmart…”

“Yours doesn’t a supply paper?”  

“Excuse me?”  I have a sinking sensation forming.

“The Supply paper?”

“TRACTOR Supply?”

“Yes!!!” 

“No, I don’t….but sir, you’ve called the Co-op.”

“Oh.”…..He disconnects.

And that, my friends, is a small sample of my day.

P.s. BEST PART: I was just waiting on a couple from New Jersey and I asked what brought them in to the store & they said, “Your big sale!” and I was like, “Uh, funny story.” I relate the tale of Battery Man. They’re nodding along the whole time, then they say, “We were just over there laughing about a man measuring them in the packs. He had his tape measure out & everything! He was still there when we left.” We were laughing so hard.