Forrest Humps & Letters to Santa

I'm here! I'm here - I'm so sorry my Flashback is late. Sometimes you get last-minute notice that your hubby's day off is going to be switched from Friday to Thursday AND he's asked to come in two hours early all weekend long which will ruin any chance you had for a nice weekend. And sometimes you try and salvage that weekend by going out to dinner on that day off, then get sucked into the kick-ass TV that is on. And sometimes - sometimes you realize, on your way home after Friday morning swimming lessons and running of errands that "Oh crap!" no Flashback post has yet been written.

So first things first - Mama Smurf (trust me, she has a REAL name) is running in a marathon this weekend and she asked I link up her Flashback post. Go over and give her some LOVE! Tell her she rocks just for running in a marathon - cuz Lord knows I probably never will.

And I see Marni wrote one, too. Sorry to letcha down, babe.

But let's get to it - lots to say today. First, I'm dumb. Last week, I wrote about my job waiting tables at Denny's, and alluded to posting today about my worst job ever. Only I already wrote about it. Just a little excerpt for ya, from an old(er) FF post:

[When I first moved to Green Bay,] I had no job, so I enlisted with a temp service and worked a few shifts in one of the city's famous paper mills packaging napkins before I decided I could find better work on my own.

Whether the work I found was actually better or not is questionable. First it
was a checker and customer service manager in a small Mom & Pop grocery
store. (Imagine lots of arguments with senior citizens as to whether or not they
received their 10% off the one banana they were buying. Fun.) Then it was a
clerk and shift supervisor at Family Video.

Now, I must digress from my flashback to give you the dirt on that job. Family Video. Its for Families, right? I mean, "Family" is the first word of its name.

Family Video had a porn section. A BIG porn section.

I had to inventory that porn.

I had to call customers and ask they return the porn when it wasn't returned on time.

It went a little something like this:

Ring ring!

"Hi! You're reached the Hanson residence. John, Karen, Rachel and Peter can't take your call right now. Please leave us a message and we'll get back to you!"

BEEP!

"Um, hello, Mr. Hanson. This is Colleen from Family Video calling. Forrest Humps is now five days overdue and we need you to return that to our store on Military Avenue right away to keep your account from accruing additional late fees. Thanks and have a great day!"

Ah, good times. Not the worst job, certainly. I had a cousin that worked for the DOT for a few summers - what was that we called him? Oh yeah - Chief Engineer of Aerial Burials. That's right - he would drive miles of country highway each day, looking for poor critters who'd been squished into pancakes, scoop 'em up with a shovel...and FLING! them out into the trees/field/ditch on the side of the road. (I have to imagine a slightly different procedure was used for the bigger roadkill - I'll have to ask him what they did with deer when I see him for Christmas. Ah - what good dinner conversation THAT will make!)

So - because I've already written the above, I thought I'd share with you a little letter I've been writing up in my head lately. *Ahem*

Dear Santa,

Its been roughly 24 years since my last letter. I want you to know that when I asked for a Cabbage Patch Kid and you gave me a bald preemie 'Kid named Bart Cass that it really sorta ticked me off a bit. I think I'm finally getting over that now. But seriously - I couldn't even get a girl doll?!?

I've been a really good. I eat all my veggies, and get my kids to eat theirs, too. I read to them, give them baths and brush their teeth. I ran a bunch of errands this morning and Will even came home wearing pants.

So I feel its justified to have a slightly longer than usual list this year. I would like:

• A new laptop - one with a pretty purple cover, and lots of gigs and rams and fancy stuff inside. Oh, and my own copy of CS3.


• A scanner


• A color printer (one a little faster and easier on the toner than my current BubbleJet)


• A DVD burner with lightscribe


• A DSLR camera, preferably a Nikon D-60 or D-80


• And a new pair of slippers.

That's all. As usual, please look for the plate of cookies decorated by my kids. Don't look at me if all the icing and sprinkles and chocolate chips and raisins on top give you indigestion. I tried to explain that Santa really likes Milanos and coffee, but last year they wouldn't hear of it. If you notice there are a lot of cookies again, its because Nick doesn't believe me that reindeer would really rather have carrots instead. (I'll draw the line on leaving a bowl of milk to go with the cookies for the reindeer this year as well.)

And if you'd bring a little sumthin-sumthin for my Hubby, that'd be great, too. I don't want to overdo it, but if I don't have to be waiting up for him under the tree, so much the better. If he gets a really good present from Santa he'll be just as happy with me in flannel PJs, and could care less if I'm already snoring by the time he gets home from work.

Thanks, Santa. You're the best!

~ Colleen

I know it isn't even Halloween yet, but what's on YOUR Christmas list this year?