Bulls....eye.

aka "the Target dog."

Two-year global economic disaster? Check. Completely useless degrees in a rapidly dying field? Check. And that brings folks like me to working at places like Target.

It could be worse, yes: I could have had to resort to the Purveyor of All Evil. Target at least has a bit of a social conscience. (Heads-up, shoppers -- you get a 5-cent discount per reusable bag. Bring your own or buy one there.) But damn, I need a real job soon, because being perky for hours on end is going to send me into a complete nervous breakdown sooner rather than later. I can only be un-cranky for so long. ;-)

So far the most interesting things I've had to ring up are, uh, prophylactics and undies. You know, that is just more than I want to know about people. Then you get that horrible "oh god, my parents have sex" thing goin' on (but with images of the other people) in your brain and ... well ... just ... EWWWW. And the undies ... Men's come in packages, at least, and they're really plain. And you can't tell much from them aside from what his waist size is. OTOH, the size 30 bra for an adult woman -- again, TMI.

When they aren't screaming, the kids are a hoot. I asked one little boy what he was going to be for Halloween. He said, "um ... something." (No decision yet. Halloween's Saturday. Ten bucks says Mom's going to be back Saturday afternoon cruising the picked-over costumes.) One pushed all his family's items up toward the scanner when the conveyor belt decided not to work. I thanked him for being a good helper and he was still beaming when they left. And the toddler who maintained eye contact and just smiled from ear to ear every time I looked at her made my night.

I still maintain that a monkey could run the register -- they've come quite a long way from my days at McDonald's in the '80s. And at least I don't have to wear some stupid/ugly/garish uniform and I look good in red. ;-) I just gotta figure out how to work around this inability to be my usual curmudgeonly self. Maybe I should try to make up for it by being extra-curmudgeonly on my days off. ;-)

In the meantime, I'm filing these characters away with the likes of Dan-Rather-hair-Richard-Nixon-face, who I was stuck on a dead airplane with on the way to Connecticut for my niece's baptism. Never did make it. But the asshole gate attendant who looked at the line of people trying to find different flights and said to his pal, "Are these real people, or are they non-revs?" is going in the book, too. (Non-revs = non-revenue = folks who work for the airline or have family/friends who do and thus fly free or close to it. In other words, when he took advantage of that benefit for himself -- HE WAS A NON-REV! I love the terminally clueless. They make good copy.)