(As in, “A list … on my blog.”)

I don’t like to make lists when I need to run errands. Now, here I am back in my apartment after running my errands — including some Christmas shopping — and I realized that, yes, I got the gift certificates for my sister and her two roomates (one of them our cousin) from Borders; I got a storage tub from Target; I got milk and eggs from Giant.

I forgot the sale on the first season of Lost ($30!) which I was also going to get my sister from Target for the holiday. This pisses me off as I was already there.

I forgot the two tubs of cat litter from PetCo or PetSmart (whichever one is on Aylesbury). I wasn’t on Aylesbury, but I was in Timonium, so I’m not entirely teed off about this one.

***

I got to Borders actually fairly early, and there was only one guy working the register. I got three gift certificates, as I mentioned above. As he’s scanning them in and setting the prices and whatever else he has to do, this woman walked up right behind me. Uncomfortably close. Apparently she’s unaware of the big sign stuck on the floor before the bank of registers which says “Wait Here For Next Available Cashier.”

The big sign. That’s its impossible not to see.

I thought about turning to her and saying, “Hey, bitch, see the sign? He’s not – at the moment – an available cashier because unless you’re blind as a bat (and you must be to think that hat looks good on you), you can probably see he’s helping me. Now back the fuck off until we’re done.”

But I didn’t because I knew while I’d get my rocks off telling her that, she’d just take it on the clerk, and trust me, we’re getting to the time of the year when working retail really gets to the point where everyone wants to come to work packin’ a sawed off shotgun and a side-bag full of extra shells.

***

At Target, a stray shopping cart was rolling around the parking lot trying to hit cars. I dodged it and parked, walking in I had the intent to grab the cart and roll it in with the others on the side of the building. A woman had beat me to it, and was walking away from the cart when it rolled loose from the others (again, I presume). I secured the cart a bit more forcibly than she had (i.e., I pushed it over) and walked in to find her … getting herself a cart.

What, that one wasn’t good enough?

Dear Readers,

Please rack your brain and think of the busiest days you believe a fast-food delivery operation might face on a yearly basis.

I’m not looking for, “Oh, Fridays are busy because everyone is too lazy to cook!” Yes, but I’m talking more along the lines of — and here’s an example for you — “Halloween is one of the busiest days of a delivery shop’s year.”

A pizza cutter is a round wheel with a dull edge attached to a handle.

The first pizza cutter was actually developed by a tribe of Indians in the Pacific Northwest in the mid eighteenth century. They attached a circular blade to a tomahawk handle because they found it made skinning animals easier. An Italian immigrant bought one of these “rounded” tomahawks from the tribe for use cutting pizzas, which he sold in his general store in Portland. Although the rounded blade didn’t turn, cutting was made easier because he could simply “push” the blade through the crust and the pie.

When thrown, a well made pizza cutter (i.e., not one of those cheap ones used by most pizza shops) is second only to an Aboriginal boomerang in killing potential.

In the wrong hands, a pizza cutter has the potential to be a deadly weapon.

It never fails. It’s pouring out and the lady who thanks me oh so much for coming out in the horrible weather — oh, look, I’m soaked — and who, yes, agrees that I do deserve $400 for this incredible job of driving a pizza to her in the pouring, driving, freezing rain …

… tips me a buck fifty-four.

$1.54 … $400 … hell, I’d'v’e been happy with $3.

No magical castle/boarding school is complete without a tower-top broomstick landing pad. Y’know, for VIWs.