I am terribly sorry if you had small children that were in the room when you pulled my page up. But an over weight dude that lives with a bunch of elves at the North Pole, flies all over the world giving gifts to only the good children of the world does not exist in a tangible form. The spirit of this imaginary person does exist in the hearts of parents who once a year have to prove to their kids that they actually love them. It is not enough that all year long they sacrifice their hopes and dreams to work at jobs they hate, drive cars that are anything less then the GTO they dreamed of owning, and hemorrhage money for food, clothes, and other material items that will be discarded when the Johnson's kid get something newer. That said, I do live Christmas.
Not so much the people that embrace this horrible corporate image of bigger, better, brighter that we have been slowly forced into over the years. Its these people that really bumb me out. Even more than the kid who gets socks from grandma instead of a Wii. I deal These delinquents and their parents (who were delinquents as children themselves) at both of my jobs. I normally brush their behavior and ignorant questions off and go on about my business. However, today one customer brought in her attitude and ridiculous question and I just could not let it go. The conversation went as follows:
"Do you have bikes for a small child and what size would I need?"
As I tried to formulate the best answer i could for her as confused look was displayed on my face. Due in large part to the fact that the definition of a small a small child is relative and how am I supposed to know the right size for someone who is not present. Before I was able to answer she vomited up more information to help the obviously incompetent sales punk.
"She is about 37 inches"
Once again I am given information that is worth about as much as POGs. Her child could be anything from 34-40 inches tall which greatly changes the size of the bike. However, I resort to her tactics by giving her just as vague information back.
"It sounds like a 16inch wheeled bike or a 20inch might be what you are looking for but without actually sizing her I cannot tell you for certain. Different manufactures have different frames and sizes to help fit children as they grow." I smirked on the inside like Peewee Hermon before he was cuaght.
"Well how is Santa supposed to bring it to her if you have to size her?" She said it like Paris Hilton talks to the media.
I wanted to replay "I don't know maybe you shouldn't lie to you kid, lady." However, I settled with a slightly different answer.
"It not up to me to answer that question. It is a safety issue if the bike is not sized right. That is why we like to have the child present when it is purchased."
As she turns to leave she mumbles something that sounds like "Yeah. You and every other bike shop doesn't want to sell me a bike for Christmas."
It brought a tear to my eye as she climbed into a huge SUV and drove off into the cold in search of the perfect size bike for her daughter, who in all actuality, probably would rather have a Hanna Montana track suit or the Johan's brothers CD more than a bike. I wasn't crying because I felt bad that I couldn't help make this Christmas better then last year's (or better then the one here dad and step mom would give her) I was truly disgusted with the fact that this is what Christmas means to people. I am not going to go into what Christmas means to me because that is lame. Instead I am going to tell you to go the CX-mas unless you want to be weak sauce and run around complaining to sales people who really don't care about you or your kids. Because CX-mas is going to be a bunch of rad people who see Christmas for what it really is.
PS The first person to translate to what Nazi Santa is saying gets a six pack of your choice
