Day Seven of Death by Caroling

[Current musical accompaniment: a very jazzed up “Jingle Bells”]

*sigh* I can’t call him “O’Beast” anymore. He’s still the “Clueless Wonder”. And Cattitude goes back to Cattitude. The Kitten from Hell has grown out of her kittenhood. The Socialist lovingly calls her the Little Grey Shit, but I don’t think I’ll use that. Grey Menace may stick. I’ll have to think about that one.

I bit the bullet this morning, and sent out an S.O.M. (Send out money) to the sisters this morning to raise some funds for Clueless’s medical care. I took a look at my bank account, my Hummels, and my own expenses and realized I wasn’t going to be able to pull this one off solo. I’ll be able to pay the sisters back after I receive my Christmas bonus next month. At least I hope I’ll be able to.

I decided that there was no way I’d be able to grab Clueless with a full bladder and get him to the vet’s with the bladder still full. So I’ve made arrangements to drop him off there Thursday morning, and pick him up from there Thursday evening. He won’t thank me for it, but on the plus side he’ll get more food than I’d give him at home if he gets to stay at the vet’s for a day. I don’t think he’ll actually forgive me because of that, but he might spend a short period of time pouting.

[Current musical accompaniment: “Merry Christmas Darling”, by The Carpenters]

The local high school puts on a crafts market every year about this time. This is a full-blown, fancy “juried” show. Virtually everything will be out of my price range, but it’s fun to go look. It starts at 10:00, and I figure I can get there first thing, spend a couple hours, and get back home before The Socialist wakes up and misses me. I’ve got a couple of coupons for $1 off the admission, so maybe I’ll try to con Dr. Twenty Cats or the Younger Sister into meeting me there.

[current musical accompaniment: “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, by Bruce Stringbean]

The Socialist’s birthday is tomorrow. I’ve managed to get a fair amount of inexpensive but still worthy booty for him. I’m disappointed that one item that was being shipped from Moscow hasn’t arrived yet, but if I have to I’ll make it a Christmas present to him instead. Another item has also failed to arrive, but I knew that one was going to be late. He should be getting that this weekend, if all goes right. Tonight I wrap the presents, cackling all the while to myself because I know he’ll have read this and still remains clueless about the best stuff.

I did screw up on one item. He’s been longing for a credit card-sized calculator. He used to have one, and was looking for a replacement. I searched high and low for something that would serve. I found one really cheap one for about $5.00 that would have self-destructed the first time a button was punched on it. Searching the net also yielded little. Casio, Sharp, Texas Instruments, you name it. They all had small calculators, but they were thick – too thick to qualify for true “credit card size”.

I finally found a place in Paris (France) that actually had quality credit card sized calculators. They were inexpensive, and so I ordered three, one for the Socialist and one for each of the sisters for Christmas. The package arrived incredibly promptly. The envelope was sealed tightly. The box inside was also nicely sealed, with absolutely no sign of tampering. I opened up the box, and found three small boxes inside of it, one for each of the calculators I ordered. I opened the first box. The calculator instructions (in French) were there. So was the carrying case for the calculator. The calculator, however, was missing.

It took me a few minutes to convince myself that the box was truly devoid of its proper contents. I checked the other two boxes, and the calculators were indeed there. So I wrote a quick email to the company, who responded within 24 hours by emailing an apology and sending out a replacement. I might note that the replacement hasn’t actually arrived yet (I just realized that).

Anyhow, I was griping about this without specifying the contents that were missing to The Socialist. When I get a good head of steam going, rants flow freely from my lips. Unfortunately, while my mouth is fully engaged, my brain might slip a cog or two. I ended up my description of events by telling him that the company was sending me a replacement calculator.

D’uh. Guess he’s not going to be real surprised by that package now, is he?

[current musical accompaniment: I have no fricken idea, but it sounds like it was ripped out of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about Tiny Tim]

I’m not sure where Thanksgiving is being held this year, but I suspect the Sisters won’t want to come to my place. It’s forty minutes away from both of them, and therefore “inconvenient”. It’s coming up quickly enough that I really should corner one of them and get a definitive answer on when and where.

My company always does Thanksgiving holiday in a weird way. We get Thursday off, but have to work Friday and Saturday. We then get the following Monday off. The reason they do this is because that Monday is the first day of doe season in our state, and the family who owns our company are all into hunting in a big way. While it’s a pain having to come in Saturday, it will be nice to have Monday off.

Of course, on the down side, I have to have blood work done that Monday, so half the day is automatically a waste. Then again, I don’t get docked pay for taking half a day off, so I guess it’s more good than bad. Christmas and New Year’s will be worse. Again, we get the actual holidays off, but we’ll have to work the Saturday before both of those weeks. It’s OK for the hourly employees because they get paid time and a half for those Saturdays. We salaried employees get shafted though. Most of my compatriots will do a token day and then go home again, but because of the nature of my job I won’t have that option.

I’ll have to see if my boss is at least springing for a free lunch for those of us stuck here those days.

[No! Please tell me it isn’t so. The Beach Boys didn’t really sing “Frosty the Snowman” did they?]