12.27.2005
My father has gotten me hooked on a new thing, an obsession if you will.
The Bargain Channel.
Let me explain. While I live in a large town, we have lots of little towns sprinkled in the surrounding area. My dad works in one of them, a tee niny burg named Macclenny. Aside from being famous as the home of the state hospital for the insane, Macclenny also plays host to my new favorite radio station-WJXR, The Bargain Channel.
I was driving my father's car one day, and when I turned the radio on, I heard a man hawking CB radio/radar detector gizmos for $19.95. NINETEEN NINETY FIVE!! To listen to this man talk you could make friends over the radio with the same police you were eluding while travelling I-10 to the big city. I was fascinated by the combination of As Seen on TV dreck and country radio personalities.
Since that time, I've bought "magic" calculators which are small vials that include a thin calculator and a "parker style" pen. When you open the vial and twist it, it magically changes colors! Those were 2 bucks a pop, great for stockings this Christmas. I've also bought paper towels in holiday prints, 2 rolls for a buck fifty. A 23 pound whole bone in ham for $39.95 and a spa gift certificate for 24 dollars. For me, the draw isn't in the actual items, it's in the fabulous on air personalities that have been attracted to this small radio station.
In the morning you can listen to Discount Doug, who calls everyone "love", "deah" and "dahlin". After lunch is Price Cutter Paul who ends every call with "have a blessed day" and refers to his wife as "Miss Melissa". Then there's "the Chief" who apparently finds all the deals. He calls in from Dunn Pawn and Jewelry with the 2 carat oval cut Mystic Fire Topaz ring set in 10k yellow or white gold. That's a retail value of $599.00 but he has wrangled 3, just 3 of them for us for just 9 dollars. Hurry folks, we'll put these on the timer and they'll be gone before you know it!
By far though, my favorite is Barbara. She's on at night, when I'm driving home from work. She has the whisky and cigarette voice of your favorite diner waitress, but there's also a girlish sweetness to it. She's just so damn happy to hear from you when you call in, answering the phones with her "dubya jay ex ar" and then her scratchy "hello hunny!" when she recognizes a voice of a frequent buyer. Last night she nearly had a seizure when Leon told her that he was going to offer the "magic cleaner" in the next segment. It's too bad I got home before I could find out just how much the magic cleaner was going for, I could've spent my morning sitting at the station with all the other addicts, waiting for my turn to pick up my order of 95 cents worth of ammonia and water.
posted by Keriann at 12/27/2005 12:03:00 PM comment(s) made:
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12.20.2005
The sun is shining today for the first time since last week. Saturday we had a monsoon here and since the mall I work at is actually called a "lifestyle center", it's in a strip mall style. Soooo, we had NO traffic whatsoever. That was fine with me because I got a lot of stuff done that put us ahead of setting up our post Christmas sale.
Poor Cave Baby has some sort of jungle plague that's going around town. He has been sick since last Thursday with a productive cough, lethargy and an intermittent fever. This is day 5 and from what the ped said, it lasts about a week so hopefully he'll feel better soon. THG and I both have taken PTO days to stay home with him and hopefully he'll be back in preschool tomorrow or Thursday.
I finally figured out why I'm having such a difficult time getting all Christmasy and it hasn't really got anything to do with the fact that I'm working retail and have overloaded on Christmas carols already. I walked through the garden center at Target the other day to shortcut through and smelled all the live Christmas trees! The Fraser fir scent immediately made me almost giddy-and I realized that since we have a fake tree our house doesn't have that Christmas scent. I bought some candles and other things but nothing really comes close to real branches. Luckily Target has thriftily saved all the branches that they cut from their trees and are selling them to sorry homeowners like myself that don't want the mess of a real tree.
posted by Keriann at 12/20/2005 11:44:00 AM comment(s) made:
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12.13.2005
Wow, over a month since I've even had time to visit my own blog. For some odd reason, I have some spare time today-so let me catch my breath.....
Cave Baby is now in preschool. It's a private Christian preschool and he also attends "extended day" on the days I work late. It currently has grades up to 3 and will add a grade a year so hopefully he'll be able to just stay at the school rather than going to public school in 3 years.
I'm still working insane hours, up to 50 a week, but will cut down to 30 after the 1st of the year.
I bought a new car! Yay me!
CB1 begins college in 3 weeks and has been working full time-we'll see how long he can keep up 2 full time pursuits without dropping from exhaustion.
PB is still the same, she's actually doing very well at school now and is seemingly happier than she's been in a while.
CB2 is flying high through his senior year-his Hi-Q team was the only undefeated team in the state and since he was the captain he's extremely proud!
The weather has finally turned cool so I can wear my sweaters to work.
I know this is a hugely boring post, but honestly I haven't got anything to talk about besides work which is also boring to everyone but myself.
Oh, and one thought for the day:
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
posted by Keriann at 12/13/2005 01:11:00 PM comment(s) made:
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