Lastminute.com

As I sit in the shop, singing aloud to Shania Twain and generally looking like a social misfit, I am going to try to relive Saturday in my mind.
Saturday happened to be the day of a large executive ball held in our city. The women who attend are notoriously last-minute; some have excuses, some don't. It's like a whirlwind in a day.
Anyway, so Saturday morning rolled around far too quickly, seeing as I'd been out for the night and crawled home at 4am. The day was crammed full of women who needed dresses for the evening, regardless of price. This is a very stressful exercise, because we are now looking for any dress that might not need altered to fit and we also can't sell two of the same to the function.
A high-flying customer of ours dashed in mid-way through the day, leaving her taxi driver parked outside the shop. She'd flown in from Singapore that day, and taken the taxi straight from the airport to the shop to buy a dress. She was like a blustering wind - I felt exhausted just from her 5 minute sprint around the shop. At least she purchased something in this time. Tiring. I nearly collapsed around 3pm, which is when my boss left me alone in the midst of the chaos, because she had to go to the function herself. Luckily, another colleague came in to assist, and peace was restored.

Quaking in my brogues..!

We have a policy that we can't break for anyone. Our policy is to only sell one of a style of dress to a function. We note down where all the dresses go, and refuse sales if there's already one style going, just to save someone turning up and looking like a tit. Anyway, I had to refuse a sale today, and it didn't go down too well. They didn't seem to understand why I couldn't sell the style if it was in a different colour... If looks could kill, I'd be decomposing by now. I was actually quite scared. It's not my fault! We're trying to save you embarassment! If you want a dress that everyone else has, go to Coast or Monsoon!

Public. Transport.

Anyone who has ever had to make the jump from driving a car to taking a bus will know the trials that you face on such a journey. It was not my turn for the car today, so I set my alarm a bit earlier so that I could make it to the bus in time to actually make it to work. I arrived at the bus stop at 9.20am, giving me plenty of time to reach work before I was due to open. However, I did not allow for the fact that all buses are pathetic. My bus trailed in at 9.41am, and after picking up numerous pensioners, we finally left my *village* at 9.50am. Now, my village isn't particularly close to the centre of town, hence the 40 minute bus journey. It was now left to prayer that we might arrive somewhere in the ten minute bracket that had just opened up, but there wasn't a chance. We all knew that. All the pensioners going 2 stops down the road knew that.

Sigh. At least we picked up some speed on a long straight where nobody actually lives, which meant nobody got off and nobody got on for a while. When I eventually got off the bus, I had to speedwalk up to the boutique, as the nearest bus stop is miles away. I was late, obviously. Not as bad as I'd thought, but still late. Not exactly worth getting up earlier for.

I had quite an amusing evening last night. I've been a bit tired lately (anaemia), so my SO and myself have just been kicking back like an old married couple. We watch telly, walk the dog, maybe watch a movie and then go to bed. I haven't been up to anything exciting for a while. Although, that said, we did take a day trip up to the beach last week, which was lovely.
Anyway. So with another night of telly looming ahead of us, I quickly accepted when my dad invited us to B&Q with him. I offered my SO the front seat, something that rarely happens, so it was rather amusing when my father revealed that he wanted to return a length of guttering and that was the reason for the trip. His first try at fitting in the unusually long guttering was to get it in the boot, but so that it hung out of the front window. This involved particular embarassment for my SO, who was condemned to look after the guttering which was hanging out of the window quite a long way. As we picked up speed, however, it started flapping in quite a dangerous manner, so we knew we had to try to fit it in differently. The only other option was to have the extra guttering hanging out of the boot with the boot tied down, but we didn't have rope. The solution was obvious. I had to lie in the boot and stop the boot from flying open. I was gutted. All the teasing I'd done of my SO was invalid, because now I looked like a tit for lying in a car boot hanging onto the roof. I think the trip has spurred us to go out and do things, but I'm just waiting on my doctors appointment to stock up on pills.

I've got a surprise party tonight. The last surprise party I went to ended disastrously when we arrived at the same time as the surprisee and had to walk up his drive *with* him, carrying presents and trying to be nonchalant as to why we'd turned up.. Quite amusing, really. But tonight should be good. Although I only know 4 people going and I'm not sure the surprise part has been arranged too well, but it should be good. Optimism is best.

I'm starving. I'm off to buy a pie...

D.I.Y. Tattoos..not recommended.

So it's nearly half-past two in the afternoon, and I'm now SO bored, I've started drawing on myself with permanenet marker. I now look like a mini-mod and have to hide my inks from the customers, who may just look down on me. Nobody came in until 1.30pm today. Not a soul. It had to be the most soul-destroying morning. To entertain myself these past few days, I've been property-hunting. Very entertaining, but I seem to have developed a thing about getting attached to the houses and wanting them. Shame I can't afford them whatsoever. It's also caused some rifts with me and the boyfriend, as discussing how we'd kit out a flat. Apparently we don't share the same taste in living room furniture as I'd previously thought...