A (boring) Christmas Story

Since the weather outside is frightful, and certainly not delightful, I guess I can take my indoor confinement in good measure and get some writing done that I have been putting off. I have already wrote a letter to my grandmother and have finished a mail survey for mysurvey.com and started a letter to my aunt and now, as a break from those activities I figured that I would come over and blog for a while. After all, while I did post some Christmas pics, I really didn't cover the whole Christmas story. Sure there are other things I could blog about, my fantasy football team who last week had me on the edge of my seat and I have to finish the change meter tally, but I think I will save those for their own individual blogs and just focus on Christmas on this here entry.

As I said before, I had to work Christmas day, a 7am-3pm shift at the news stand which meant while many people were running down the steps of their warm and comfy abodes bright and early Christmas morning to get about the business of unwrapping gifts, my alarm was buzzing around 4:30am trying to wake me out of a slumber from which I really didn't want to come out of. Normally I wouldn't have set my alarm that early for a 7am shift, but the city buses were on a holiday schedule so I couldn't take my normal route in, and whereas I sometimes arrive 10-15 minutes late if I take the bus closest to my apartment, that isn't all that much of a problem when I am a stockperson, it is a big problem when, like Christmas, I am in charge of the place. Thankfully I am not in charge all that much anymore, maybe it has something to do with my confidence inspiring comments like "When the ship starts to sink, I want to be at the helm so I can drive it right into the ocean." As a result I am now only left in charge when it is absolutely necessary.

Back to the story, the alarm goes off at 4:30am, allowing for me to have the appropriate number of smacks of the snooze button before I actually get out of bed. I am so terrible at getting up in the morning that I now set my clock a full two hours ahead just so when the alarm does go off, the first thing I have to do is a math problem to figure out just what time it is. If I can force my brain to do a little work I find it helps get the rest of the body moving in the morning as well.

I manage to get up, start putting the things I need to get together for my trip home later all rounded up, throw on some clothes, just sweat pants and a sweat shirt, thus ruining my chance at being GQ's News Stand Man of the Year, and head out the door around 6:15am. I catch my bus and get into work about 6:45 am, where I start by counting the bank, then the cigarettes cartons, then the cell phones, then putting together the two register banks for Brittany and myself and finally getting the lottery in order and proceed to start my work day.

And then I wait, and wait and wait, as the shop was incredibly slow, as was to be expected Christmas morning. Most of the newspapers we normally carry didn't arrive, the local paper, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, the driver never even stopped in, he just blew off our stop, and many of the out of town papers like the NY Post, NY Daily News, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Harrisburg Patriot News, Wall Street Journal, etc. didn't show up because apparently their driver had the holiday off. About the only aspect of the business that really did any significant amount of money was the lottery, which was made more troublesome by Brittany, who really needs to be properly trained on running the lottery machine, so it was a multitude of mistakes when she tried to sell tickets. Part of the reason for it being busy was the Powerball drawing which was to take place the next day had a jackpot of $120+ million, and anytime the jackpot grows to those type numbers sales obviously increase.

For the entire day I didn't even clear $600 in sales, so in many ways it was a waste of time. I cut my stockperson loose two hours early, thus saving a little on payroll and I would have cut myself loose early as well if I didn't have to balance the books at the end of the shift.

So 3pm comes, the bank balances out and the lottery number games all balance out yet my instant tickets come up as being $20 over. I racked my brain for where the discrepancy could be but couldn't find it, so either the earlier shift sold some tickets and didn't turn them in or I made change out of my drawer and just misplaced the cash, in which case my drawer will come up $20 short. In any event I had places to go and things to do Christmas day so I didn't waste too much time on it.

I go and catch my bus and am back in my apartment by 3:30pm. One of the advantages of living in Oakland is even on a holiday schedule there are enough buses that head this way that a wait at the bus stop isn't too long.

I get in and wrap the last few presents I didn't get to the previous night and make sure all of my Christmas cards are in order then I grab the few things I didn't have packed away, my laptop and my camera. I didn't even bother packing clothes, I figured if I was only going to be home a day there was no sense in packing a bunch of clothes I wouldn't wear.

My family arrived around 4pm so I loaded everything into the truck and off we went. I thought I did okay in buying gifts this year, I know I didn't spend the money my family did, but I also don't make quite the money that they do. Thankfully I really have only three people to buy for, my mom and her husband and whoever I get in the family gift exchange. The gift exchange item was shipped out already so it would be there by Christmas Eve, I had my aunt Valerie's name and I got her a programmable coffee pot, a few small sample coffees (Jack Daniels, Jim Beam and Irish Cream) and a couple of matching photo albums that came already wrapped in a bow. Anything to help me, because my gift wrapping skills are sure to keep gift wrapping stations in department stores in business for years to come. My skill or lack thereof with gift wrapping is almost as much of a running joke as my actual Christmas list is.

So we pile into the truck and off we go. First stop is my grandmothers house where we are going to drop off her gifts and do a little visiting since I haven't seen her since my birthday party back in June. When we get there my cousin Bob is also there, so we talk a little about our respective jobs, since he too had to work on Christmas Day. We were going to head down to his place after our stop at my grandmother's house, but since his dad was sick with the flu, we decided it best to not disturb them and instead just gave Bob all of the stuff that was to go to his place. We also were going to walk across the street to my cousin Amanda's house but her and her husband Mark had company, I think it was Mark's family, so we just dropped off the stuff for them and after chatting with my grandmother for about an hour or so we headed home to perhaps begin with our actual holiday festivities.

The road between my grandmother's house and that of my parents is almost a straight shot along a US highway (US 422 for those that need to know such details). Along the way is a little town called Shelocta, a town that derives its name from the Iroquois language, meaning "Shainee Cabin". Honestly I have no idea who the hell Shainee is, or why the town is named after his or her cabin, but I often joke that it is a suburb of Elderton, my hometown. Not that my hometown is large by any stretch, fewer than 400 poeple actually live there, but Shelocta is even smaller still, with just 127 residents as of the 2000 census. The main feature of Shelocta is a little truck stop called Sandy Kaye's, which has been there for years. Back when I was in high school it was open 24 hours and it wasn't uncommon to see high school kids in there late night, trying to sober up before facing their respective parental units after a night of drinking and partying. The staple of such events was usually french fries with gravy, but through the years the hours of operation have changed, it is no longer open 24 hours, I think it closes around 10pm most nights now.

The reason I mention these odd bits of useless trivia is bacuse as we are driving home, we drive by and I happen to notice that they are open. I believe my actual words were "Look, Sandy Kaye's is open on Christmas." I said it more out of curiosity than anything else, but Mike decided that it would be better to eat now than go home, try to do all of our Christmas stuff and then make something to eat after it. It was a logic that my stomach agreed with, all I had to eat all day was an egg salad sandwich at work and a free coffee from Sheetz when we first left Pittsburgh (the free coffee thing may end up becoming as much a holiday tradition as my Christmas list blog.) so there was no argument from me on the prospect of eating.

We went in and there were maybe three people there, one of which looked like the boyfriend of the high school girl who drew the short straw and had to waitress on Christmas. I ordered the meatloaf sandwich with french fries and gravy but when it came to the table it was mashed potatoes instead. Rather than make a big fuss about it I just ate the mashed potatoes, no big thing and really nothing to get all upset over on a holiday. I offered to buy dinner but Mike said no, so I threw $10 on the tip, Mike added another $5. Hopefully it was enough for the waitress having to work a holiday.

From there it was back to the road home, all of about a ten minute drive from there and unloading the truck. We exchanged gifts, some of which I took pictures of and posted earlier. If you notice a lack of me in those pictures it is because I tend to stay out of photos as much as possible. I have previously mentioned many of the goodies I got, so I will not revisit that bit of history either.

Next it was onto laptop surgery. I have been having problems with my laptop since the dreaded BSoD. I had it mostly running, but no sound, so I cracked it out of its case, sat down and tried to figure out what it was that still ailed my laptop. I went to the Microsoft page which thankfully had a diagnostic program I could run. So I do a quick check of my computer and while I had most of the programs I needed reinstalled from the Dell website, I was still missing a sound mixer. So off I was to websearch to find the audio mixer I was sorely missing and after some tinkering I managed to find it. While I was downloading stuff I went ahead and downloaded Firefox as well, then used it to test the new mixer by heading to Surf the Channel and trying to watch a TV program. The sky parted, the angels sang and the audio worked. I felt so happy. Plus the trip home gave me the chance to test the WiFi, which was also renstalled and I was able to steal a signal from the neighbors with little to no problem. Dare I say it was a Christmas miracle, but the laptop seems to be back and almost better than ever. There is still some free ware I need to put back on it, like Open Office, but for now it seems to be working quite well.

A little TV watching later and mom headed off to bed, Mike headed into the front room, where I normally sleep when I am at home and was doing something on his laptop and he fell asleep in there, so I just crashed in the living room in the chair I was sitting in while watching TV.

Saturday morning I was up by 8am after a rather long Christmas Day. First things first was coffee, which I tend to start most days with. I puttered around the house with my coffee, checked out the TV to see if anything was on the dish, smoked a cigarette or two out on the back porch. Mom started making our day late Christmas dinner by getting the turkey ready for the oven. Mike woke up and we were talking in the living room when he mentioned that my mom's computer was having audio problems as well and could I look at it. Unlike my laptop or desktop, which are still running Windows XP, they have Vista which I am not very familiar with, so I said I would take a look at it, but couldn't promise anything. It turns out on their computer the speakers are attached to the monitor, a feature that I don't necessarily like, but to each their own I guess. Anyway, I run the same diagnostic program that I ran on my laptop and unlike my laptop, that required some relatively serious work, at least serious work compared to my limited technical capabilities, this time the diagnostic just said that a cable was unplugged. So I pull the computer out from the cabinent and while there is something plugged into the microphone jack, nothing is actually in the line out. Better still, I have no idea what it was that was actually plugged into the microphone jack, so I located the cable for the speakers and plugged it in and not so miracle of miracles sound started to come out. Imagine that!

After fixing the computer I sat down to a rather tasty post Christmas dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes, egg noodles, gravy, green beans, corn and for dessert, pumpkin pie. Wow, after living off of my bachelor cooking for so long it was incredible to sit down and have a real meal.

Then we kind of laid around for a while, I will call it tryptophan poisoning where no one really wanted to move. I watched the Meineke Car Care Bowl since Pitt was playing and ity was a pretty good game, with Pitt beating North Carolina 19-17 to get their first 10 win season since Dan Marino played at Pitt back in 1982.

Afterward it was time to start packing for the trip back to Pittsburgh. Mike had to work Sunday, so rather than do a ton of running around the day he had to leave we decided to just bring me back on Saturday night. My mompacked a cooler full of leftovers and other groceries she thought I might like, I packed up all of my presents and we loaded up the truck for the trip back. The ride back was relatively uneventful, no stops or anything like that. About the only thing that was even remotely surprising is that early on in the trip we encountered a decent amount of fog, something that you don't see a whole lot of here in the Northeast in winter, but nothing so unmanageable that we could plow forward. There was no real traffic on the raods and with Oakland deserted because the students had went home for winter break getting into and out of my place was relatively simple.

And really that was that, Christmas lasted all of about 24 hours and then it was back to the same normal daily grind that I am used to.