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ceremony in the town where I work nearly did me in <g>.

For the last few days, the local forecasters have been predicting snow, snow and more snow. I expected to wake up this morning to 2' of snow on the ground...we barely had a dusting. Then I was expecting to drive home in a blizzard this evening...it was all green grass and clear, dry roads. Some areas of NE Ohio were hit pretty bad but for once, my town wasn't one of them (and neither was the town I work in).

On Wednesday, I wound up being 10 minutes late to work; I got there with just over 5 minutes to spare but because so many of us were working (BF deals have been going on all week and our SM was anticipating much bigger crowds), all the spots behind the store where we're allowed to park were filled. And because the large parking lot behind the store--a mixture of 2 hour spots, permit parking* and one tiny strip of all-day parking spots--is in front of the only grocery store in town, all those spots were filled by last minute (grocery) shoppers.

* It still annoys me that while the permit parking is for employees of "the plaza", we're not considered part of the plaza. Our store is on the main strip but the rear entrance is on the one edge of the plaza.

Anyways, I had to circle the lot for 10 minutes, getting psyched out by 3 different shoppers who were only returning to their car to drop off purchases, before I finally found a 2 hour spot. And because the parking lot attendee is a bit...zealous...I *had* to be out of that spot in 2 hours. Luckily, 2 hours later on Wednesday, a spot in the all-day parking row opened up and I had time to go out and move my car.

Anyways, despite having 6 employees in the store today and only three spots behind the store for us to park, there wasn't a parking issue because we were allowed to use the three spots allocated to the high end real estate agency located above us. It's important to the story later to note that those six "spots" aren't exactly spots...there's a short "driveway" leading to the back of the store, with room for three cars pulled in one after the other on the left (for the agency) and three cars pulled in on the right for us (which wasn't a problem in the summer when we mostly worked 2 persons to a shift).

I was expecting to walk into chaos when I arrived at noon...there wasn't a customer in the store. For the next 7 hours, there was times where we were busy but not crazy and times when we were dead (and as usual, nobody came into the store in the last hour or so). The folks that came in were almost all lovely, lovely people but we fell about $100 short of the total amount in sales our SM wanted us to have. It made me wonder what BFs of the past were like...

And then there was the tree-lighting ceremony. The town does it up BIG: the tree in the park at the center of town (which we can see from our front door/windows) is 75' tall. And frankly a little odd-looking...the branches droop down and look more like Spanish moss than pine. The gazebo is also adorned with festive lights, and there were visits tonight from Santa and the Grinch. A couple groups were handing out hot cocoa and other snacks, and a really loud DJ was blaring both tunes and announcements. Seriously...he was so loud, we could hear him in the store, and his music almost drowned out our music. The tree-lighting was supposed to happen at 7:00 sharp, but it didn't proceed until about 7:10. 10 minutes later, as we finally closed down the registers and closed up the store, I came out and...someone was parked behind me. I was the second car in on the agency side; tonight's key holder had parked in front of me and I don't know who was behind me. Could've been someone from the agency above; they didn't work today but they opened up the business for the employees and their families so they could watch the tree-lighting in comfort (and warmth--no snow tonight but it's COLD). It could've been overflow from the restaurant next to us. Or it could've just been someone down for the lighting. In the "store" row on the right, there were no cars in the first two "spots" closest to the store but someone was parked at the end there as well. I'd done so well all day with the increased number of customers and the few people who stumbled in during the last hour "to look" (read: "warm up for a few minutes") and the super loud DJ and the agency people who were stomping back and forth upstairs (there were kids, and there was a lot of running...). But there I was, stuck in my car...I had *just* enough room to squeeze out between the car behind me and a car parked in a spot next to our parking spaces (I literally only had a few inches on either side, and I wouldn't have been able to get out except a co-worker from earlier in the day had met her husband after work for the tree-lighting ceremony, and the pair had come to collect her car at exactly the same time I was trying to leave; the two of them each took a side and coached me on how much I needed to cut the wheel to edge my way out). But then there was a steady line of cars trying to leave the plaza parking lot, and this is <town I work in> where the drivers are even more entitled donkeyholes than other drivers in NE Ohio, and absolutely nobody was giving me an inch. I thought maybe the cop car would be kind and let me out but nope, not even him. At one point, I very literally started to sob and tell nobody that I just wanted to go HOME. Finally--FINALLY!--a good Samaritan took pity on me and let me out, and I repaid him by actually going the opposite way, so I was no impediment to him whatsoever.

Can I just say again how grateful I am to have the rest of the weekend off and to have the evening shift Monday? Especially since I'm still waiting for that 2' of snow...