workingfortheman.com

The retail industry has ruined my appreciation for Christmas. I have been so desensitized by hearing Jingle Bells right after Halloween, and by seeing those hideous glitzy Christmas sweaters right next to the bathing suits, that the only item on my Christmas Wish List these days is a holiday vacation in a country that doesn't celebrate Christmas.

I was once a Display Designer for a large national chain store, which we shall call - oh, let's call it Jacques Penne. I'd only been on the job for about 2 months before The Glorious Season of Gifts and Giving was upon us, and one early November day the Assistant Manager (Mr. Prissy) announced that the time had arrived for the Christmas Blitz. Mr. Prissy informed me and my "helpers" (another display staffer and two hulks recruited from the janitorial staff) that we would be LOCKED IN THE STORE OVERNIGHT so that we could turn it into a Christmas wonderland for the joy and delight of our customers. He wanted the store to undergo an immediate transformation from drab, humdrum everyday Retail Hell into Glittery Magical Holiday Hell - or else.

At that very moment, trucks were backing up to the loading dock and disgorging enormous boxes of wreaths, pre-decorated trees, ribbons and bows, glittery tinsel ornaments and one Easy-to-Assemble UL-Approved Holiday Display Fireplace Complete With Lifelike Flame Action! It was like "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" in reverse. We were told that tomorrow we would report to work at 9 p.m., be locked into the store for the night, and work miracles by dawn if we knew what was good for us.

We rose from our beds like vampires at sundown and stood solemnly in the Shoe Department while being given our marching orders. All the Christmas decorations were to be put up and the detritus cleared away before Mr. Prissy came to let us out in the morning. With a final ugly look (which said: You steal anything, your ass is MINE) he turned the lock on the door and left us to our Herculean labors.

It was very hot in the store. Since none of the doors were open, of course, there was no fresh air coming in, and the intensity of the lights raised the temperature into the 80s. It was eerily silent, because we could not figure out how to turn on the Muzak, but then we decided it was better if we didn't because we might not hear somebody sneaking up behind us in the storerooms. We all stayed very close together and tried not to talk too loudly. Darkness pressed in against the glass doors. It would be a long, long time until the sun rose.

The hulks set to work tearing open coffin-sized cardboard boxes containing the 50 decorated trees, while Debbie and I worked at liberating the wreaths. Each box was fastened with industrial strength metal staples so in no time we were all bleeding copiously onto the decorations. Words were uttered, and not one of them was "Merry Christmas."

After we dragged the 8-foot trees around to each department, trailing tinsel behind us, we went to work hanging the 75 huge wreaths. They were 4 feet across and weighed about 35 pounds each, which didn't sound like much until we started hoisting them up to the ceiling. The biggest, most elaborate wreath of all was slated to be hung over the escalator, and as one of the hulks and I stood on our shaky stepladders and leaned out over the escalator well, the wreath slipped out of our hands and plummeted two stories down into the Housewares Department. Okay, so we didn't need a wreath over the escalator. And all that crystal down there was on clearance sale anyway.

Cruising teenagers, attracted like moths to the lighted store, were converging in the parking lot outside and banging on the doors. Several of them mooned us. The hulks wanted to moon them back, but I told them to go start uncrating the Easy-to-Assemble UL-Approved Holiday Display Fireplace Complete With Lifelike Flame Action! while Debbie and I dressed the mannequins.

The mannequins were my least favorite job, primarily because the department managers believed in trying to display as many garments on them as possible. Forcing multiple layers of clothing onto the large, heavy but fragile plaster people was roughly like dressing big uncooperative children (with detachable limbs). After destroying 6 pairs of expensive glittery pantyhose on one mannequin alone, I left Debbie to finish dressing them and went downstairs to the Children's Department. This would be a cinch, or so I foolishly thought.

It was hot and quiet and my footsteps echoed on the tile floor. I took off my shoes so I wouldn't make so much noise, and crept up on the malevolently smiling plaster children. Was that something moving over there behind the underwear display? Get a hold of yourself. Nobody's here. Whip those outfits on and get the hell back upstairs with everybody else. Damn! The department manager had forgotten to set out shoes to go with the outfits. Now I'd have to go back to the shoe storage area - alone.

I took a deep breath and ran into the storage tunnel, frantically grabbing at small-size shoe boxes. Something fell behind me, and I yelped and ran, scattering shoe displays and slipping on one of those freaking foot measurement tools. Grabbed the shoes out of the boxes, jammed them on the mannequins' feet - WRONG SIZE! Damn damn damn! I sat down for a minute. Gee, it's hot in here. And I'm soooooo tired. I really didn't want to go back to the shoe tunnel, but I slowly stood up, turned around, and crashed into Debbie.

We both shrieked and grabbed each other. She was coming down to find me because she had to use the bathroom and didn't want to go alone. We crept through the store to the woman's restroom, which of course was the only place in the store without lights, and took the fastest potty break on record. We raced back out into the blessed searing lights of the store, and heard this horrible heavy BREATHING coming over the store loudspeaker. We shrieked again. Then we heard the hulks laughing.

When we got upstairs, we discovered WHY they'd been laughing. They were lying amidst the widely scattered 428 parts of the Easy-to-Assemble UL-Approved Holiday Display Fireplace Complete With Lifelike Flame Action! and smoking a joint. At this point, I was tempted to join them, but it was 4 a.m. and that stupid fireplace was nowhere near assembled.

We spent the next 3 hours making like merry little demented elves: fighting with the fireplace, frantically vacuuming up the tinsel and broken glass, trying to make the evil mannequins stand upright. We were so exhausted and so spooked that we had convinced ourselves there was: a) somebody hiding in the freight elevator; b) somebody ringing the bell on the loading dock; and c) somebody walking around in the upstairs storage tunnel. Sunrise found the four of us hunkered down behind the cosmetics counter, waiting to be set upon by mannequin zombies hungry for blood.

7 a.m. All is calm, all is bright. The Christmas decorations lay round about, deep and crisp and even. Trees twinkled, wreaths gleamed, even that damned fireplace burned brightly. God bless us every one. We looked at each other - bruised, bloodstained, beaten and weary - knowing that, just like Rudolph, we'd saved the day.

Suddenly, heavy hands descended upon our shoulders. We ALL shrieked and crashed into each other. Mr. Prissy and Mr. Big, the store manager, had sneaked up on us and were giggling gleefully at their little "joke."

Oh, how I wanted to see THEIR chestnuts roasting over an open fire.

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