christmas haul

yes, christmas came early to the richardson household. my sister wanted to have sunday off so we did the festivities today. here's what i got:

1. making handmade Books by alisa golden (mother-n-law)
2. socks appeal by brenna maloney (mom)
3. two joann gift cards (yes!) (mom and m-n-l)
4. a little notepad set (m-n-l)
5. historic photos of university of michigan by michael chmura (dad)
6. calendar of italian adverts from the 40s (sister)
7. silver dangley earrings (mom)
8. two glade candels (mom)
9.jaffa chocolate bar (scott)
10. gel inserts for shoes
11. audrey hepburn box set (m-n-l)
12. chocolate covered cherries and chocolate liqueurs (mom)
13. tshirt that said "i like to fart" (scott)
14. iPhone (scott)

the car debacle, part 2342

sigh. the fun never stops at the richardson household. here's the latest story of the CrashMobile:

a couple of weeks ago, i got hit by a chick coming out of an alley. i don't know if i told you about this crash meeting. ;) she hit the passenger side (the usual spot) but not nearly as bad as the last bout of damage. still, it's abut $3400 worth of crinkles. sigh.

so, i drop the car off a week later. get a car rental from enterprise. they got this sweet volvo hard-top convertible that was unexpectedly dropped off at their location and they gave me a great rate on it (not that i'm paying for the whole thing, but still) so i took it. it was a weird car to drive, you sit low and there are blind spots every where. i guess i'm getting old in my car taste. and this car feels huge, even though i don't think it's any bigger than the Mazda. anyway, i drive it to a train stop yesterday because i have my christmas party and i'm going to get out early and i was planning on doing some shopping. then, during the day, i get this great idea to meet scott in lincoln square and hang out with him and get some indian food and have a great time. i was dressed to the nines and i wanted to enjoy being out.

so we meet at a record shop at 4:30. he says, "we have to go home to get my cell phone." ok, good thing i forgot to pay the meter. but the bigger mistake was letting him drive home. he doesn't like the car for the same reasons i don't, but he's not a very versatile driver. our new plan was for me to wait in the car while he runs up and gets his phone. then we would go back to LS. so he goes to pull into a large parking spot in front of the house and he jumps the curb with the front passenger side tire. i think he's done some damage to the ground effects, but when i open my door i hear, "ssssssssssssssssss." he blew the front tire.

now this in itself isn't a big deal. i already knew that our night plans were shot, so i told him his penance was to pay for our ordered-out indian food while i called AAA. 45 minutes the AAA guy comes. i go outside and hang out with this guy (scott had an "errand" to run. won't discuss over email, but you can probably figure it out). he's trying to open the hatch that we think the spare is in. it's hex-wrenched closed, so that's not a good sign. after about 20 minutes, we realize that there's no spare. there's no room for a spare. because it's hard-top convertible, it wasn't designed with a spare.

by this time i'm laughing my ass off. in the 800 times i've had a rental car, i've never blown a tire. i've never needed any road side assistance whatsoever. then my husband drives a nice luxury car with no spare for 10 minutes and blows the tire out. and he says, "this is exactly why we can't have nice things."

so i call enterprise's roadside assistance and tell them the story. they now have to do a "tow-trade," which means that they have to tow another car to our place from the O'Hare enterprise (the only one that's open) and tow the volvo away. sigh. i ask for a smaller sedan, like a mid-size or a compact. 120 minutes later, a tow truck shows up with a (get this) CROWN VICTORIA! really? the tow guy said they can't downgrade so i got a comparable full-size car. sheesh. the dude on the phone never told me that. of course, he never said what kind of car i was getting.

so, annoying story longer, we now have a crown vic. tomorrow, i plan on going to enterprise and trading it in for a smaller car, or else that boat of a vehicle is going to sit in that space for 2 weeks because i'm afraid i'll never find another spot big enough for it.

some day this will all end. i'm not sure when, but soon. right?

my part-time past #4

my next gig was in ann arbor in the fall of 1993. me and 4 of my closest friends had procured a 5 bedroom apartment in Kerrytown, which was way the hell off campus, but it was great. down the street was zingerman's, the city's coolest deli. it's where all of the jewish students (and non-jewish, too) took their families when they came into town. they had fresh baked bread, great cheeses and sauces, and sandwiches that would blow your socks off. they also had a building next door which was their coffee shop.

annette got a job in coffee shop. she usually closed so i would go and hang out and bug her and her coworkers while i studied or just watching people or ate my weight's worth of Gemini Rocks the House (fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil on toasted farm bread). annette would eat chocolate covered espresso beans and make lattes for customers. it seemed like the perfect college job. she told me that they needed help in the mornings and i should apply. so i did.

jennifer was the morning manager. i would come into work at 5:30am and help set up and work until 3pm. yeah, that sucked. for a college student, 5:30 is bed time, not morning. i would stumble down the cobbled street before sunrise, blearily make iced tea and coffee, set up the pastry case, and wait for the first customers. and they would come. locals who got up that time every day to get their coffee or cappuccino. during the week wasn't so bad, but it was the weekends that killed me. so many people. and i would get one 20 break for lunch, which i'm pretty sure is illegal, but i got free sandwiches, so who cares.

i learned the ways of the espresso machine. it was all manual. burned milk if you didn't pay attention. the drinks didn't have descriptive names, which made it a little harder. had to remember drinks like "sarah's green grasshopper," which i think was a peppermint hot cocoa. i learned how to make a cappuccino and a latte. how to tell if you were burning the milk by the sound of the steam. and by the smell. barf.

it was also my first foray into the gay community. anthony and shelly were both gay. shelly was older than us, like 27, had gone to eastern or UM for art and now work at zingerman's full time. anthony was also older, but only by a couple of years. he grew up in a town next to the one i grew up in, so we would laugh about how small everything there was. anthony and annette were good friends, so i saw him a lot. he was so funny, not very tall, bleach blond hair, huge brown eyes, would sway when he talked to you.

shelly lived and breathed zingerman's. they wanted me to work more hours, but i couldn't with my class schedule. when finals came up, they scheduled me during a studio session that i needed before my class was over. in art, you didn't study, you made stuff, you had projects, that could take days to complete. you also fought for computers and studio time, so every minuted counted. i tried to find someone to work for me, but to no avail. i called jennifer up to tell her that i wasn't going to be coming in and she said, "i guess you worked your last day." i guess i had. it was december 1993. it had been two months since i started.

a few months later, jennifer asked annette if i wanted to come back. i guess she told annette that i was a good worker and that she missed me. that kind of vilified my firing, but i still didn't come back.

i don't think i got another job for the remainder of the school year.

my part-time past #3

this job isn't really retail, but it was totally awesome.

after i started hanging out with mike, i met his brother, ron, and cousin, dan. (actually, i met ron before kris moved to texas, but whatever.) they were the trifecta of cool. ron was the assistant manager of the Jake's Pizza on Schaumburg and Plum Grove Road. we would hang out there until they closed (midnight on weekends) and then we would head over to the pool hall across the street with various other people who worked at jakes, steve the manager, eric, one of ron and mike's closest friends, ben and ryan. ryan got busted for making 900 calls during work one time. actually, over several months, but that's neither here nor there. and, last but not least, dave.

dave was a pizza maker, as was ben and ryan. dan was the only delivery driver. one day i asked if they wanted another driver and they said sure. so away we went. i got paid a paltry sum and i kept all of my tips. i had just gotten a car and i needed to pay for it somehow... why not by driving it all around Schaumburg?

the best parts of the job were the free pizza and the company. i loved working with steve, hanging out until there was delivery. and because it was the summer, we would just hang out in the parking lot listening to whomever's latest sound system as loud as possible. i remember wearing my hypercolor shirt and my cut off jean shorts to work. after work, we would go play pool or hang out at mike and ron's house. or eric's sister's place in barrington. we would watch beavis and butthead, go to the 7-11 and get big gulps, watch really strange movies, drive into chicago. it was just a bunch of 19-year-olds with cars, money, and no curfew. one time i hung out with ron and kris until the sun came up. my dad was NOT pleased.

in addition to delivering pizzas, i remember walking around in the pouring rain, trying to find the right apartment in this huge complex. steve had maps of all of the apartment complexes we delivered to so we wouldn't have to drive around looking for crap all the time. in the rain, though, sometimes it's still hard to find places. dan had a cell phone (and a newton. he was cutting edge), so he could call if he got lost. me, not so much. i don't think i ever had to abandon a delivery, but that rainy day, i came close. people were always surprised to see a delivery chick. i didn't carry any mace or anything like that. no one really gave me the creepy vibe that i remember. it was just an awesome job.

i kept that job and the limited until i went back to school.

up next: Zingerman's Next Door

my part-time past #2

I started working at The Limited in 1991. the only reason i can think of why i would work there is because one of my friends was working there and told me to apply. so i did. this was in the day of the black lacquer and gold Limited. the old lady catsuits and silk button-down shirts. basically, cougars shopped there. it was after Outback Red but it was before Limited Too and Structure.

i hated to sell, which wasn't a big deal because we didn't work on commission there. but they did check sales regularly. the key was to sell three things for a $50 sale. socks. always add socks. accessories. some people were really good at it. but i, who could barely dress myself, really didn't understand why i should force people to buy crap they wouldn't want. and i hated it when people bugged me in the dressing room every 5 minutes. "hey, this shirt would look great with those pants!" yeah, if i wanted that shirt, i would have grabbed it. sometimes i lucked out and got some kid shopping for school clothes.

my friend didn't stay on too long, but i soldiered on. i got better at the longer i stayed there. i got the feel for people who really needed help and those who just didn't want to be bothered. one time i sold clothes to a blind woman. i kid you not. i also got to work through a remodel, which was interesting. i also developed my first work crush on Kris, one of the stock boys. i would find any reason to go back there. i would watch him as he brought out racks of clothes, swept the floor, cleaned windows. he worked in the back with his friend, mike. both of those boys were insufferable flirts, kris more of the silent type, mike more of the gushing type. i vaguely remember some of my coworkers. kelly, who only worked register. helena who was a manager. terri brennan, who was a display manager. i actually saw her in joann fabrics a few months ago. that was wild. natalie, who was also a manager. she used to be a regular at my starbucks in lincoln park 5 years ago. she had seen Skinny Puppy in concert and i was jealous. liz, whom i think had a kidney transplant, but was too embarrassed to tell anyone. she was hyper-sensitive to anything that might separate her from being popular, but no one really liked her. she was really nice, tho. she gave me a gift of a stuffed rabbit as a going away present before i went to college. pat and dave poncher, both stock boys, whom i think were never not high when they were at work. tom, another stock boy.

it was at this point in my life i was really developing my musical tastes. mike and kris had a lot of influence on me in that department. PWEI, James, KMFDM, NIN, Utah Saints, New Order, Prodigy. i used to go to the back room just to hear what music they would be playing. i ended up hanging out with mike and pat and dave outside of work several times. mike took me under his wing after kris broke my heart and moved away. he introduced to me his circle of friends, including cancer dave. but that's my next job.

i worked at The Limited for a long time. i went to college and worked at The Limited at Briarwood in Ann Arbor. They had such a small store that it wasn't really like working at all. the only pisser is that i had to take a bus to work everyday. i came back home for the summer after freshman year and tried to get a "real job." once i crashed my dad's car going to the first day of my ad solicitation job, i went crawling back to The Limited. i worked stock and register only, but i could sell pretty well. i did everything and knew everything, so it was just an easy gig. that's when i met pat and dave and tom. i kicked ass in the stock room, too.

eventually left when i went back to college for my sophomore year. but that wasn't the only job i had that summer.

up next: pizza delivery girl.

my part-time past #1

i have been working since i was 16. that's 21 years of contributing to the GNP and social security. it's pretty depressing, actually.

so my first job was at a game store. It was called Games by James and it was in Woodfield mall. i think it was 1989, around October. my boyfriend at the time, Rob, was already working there and he hooked me up. i still had to interview, but Chuck, the store manager, hired me. Chuck was pretty cool. Laid back, didn't really care about too much, but he didn't let us run the whole place into the ground. we were one of two stores, the other being in Yorktown mall in Lombard.

I didn't drive yet, so my parents had to pick me up and drop me off. sometimes i hitched a ride with Rob, other times other people drove me home. i think i made $4.50 an hour. we sold... well, games. board games, puzzles, playing cards, DD books and dice, poker felts, chess, metal bar puzzles, and darts. we had a radio that would play tapes. when we got really bored, we would break out the metal tip darts and throw them at the board that we had hanging on the wall. let's just say that there were a lot of holes around that board, with a bunch of 16-year-olds running the place. i remember the christmas rush, standing around with a bunch of people, showing them how to play games. it was pretty sweet.

i vaguely remember my coworkers. shannon, chuck. dave, jim, another dave, pam and dale (who were the owners), tony. shannon had a twin sister and a celeca convertible that her grandmother bought for her. dave was mexican and a total flirt who introduced me to some cool dance music. jim sexually harassed me and i told chuck, who i think had him fired. pam smoked like a chimney in the back room and reminded me of my mom. dale was a real tight wad when it came to money. they had a son who had a deformed hand. dave, the stock guy, had a wicked stutter, but he was the coolest guy ever. and eric, dave's brother, who worked next door at Electronics Boutique. eric was 28, but looked like he was about 18. dave and eric nelson. i wonder what happened to them?

i worked there until it closed down in Woodfied. the rent had been raised so much that it couldn't stay open. so pam and dale offered jobs at their other store. dave nelson was already the stock guy at both stores. dave gonzalez and i decided to do the drive to lombard. this may have been the summer before i went to college, so 1992. i was also working at my next retail job. The Limited.