Monday, April 28, 2014

A Walk Down Memory Lane

Its been a week since the worlds biggest matzah mysteriously disappeared from outside of my store.

Since then things have been pretty much same as usual. Lots of eating, working and being bored.
Monday was chag and we once again feasted on an array of delectable foods and drank more wine.
On Tuesday I had "vacation" and many good intentions. My plans didn't really pan out since I was feeling particularly lazy and everything seemed to be awfully far away.

Wednesday and Thursday I went to work which was boring and uneventful.

The Freddies came for shabbos and Lori&co walked over to join us for a delicious lunch and a rousing game of settlers. After lunch and settlers the Freddies, Lori&co, The Mad Man, Oscar and I all went to the park on top of the hill. Oscar declared himself king of the playground and insisted on running around with the munchkins, slides and all. He seemed particularly interested in snack time but was dismayed to discover that he would not be participating.

The Mad Man took Oscar home and then the rest of us went to visit S&S for a bit. Lori had made Indian style chicken for Friday night dinner and I wanted to try some so I tagged along with them while the Freddies went home.

Yesterday was work as usual, it was pretty quiet and uneventful.

Today I had another day off and went to S&S to help them reorganize some cabinets. We unearthed loads of toys from my childhood and I spent most of the time playing with them and reminiscing about the good old days. I also put them away in what I hope is a somewhat organized manner.

Over all a pretty successful day... :)

Monday, April 21, 2014

The Case Of The Missing Matzah

On Saturday night the worlds biggest matzah was looking a bit sparse.

I arrived at work at precisely 9am Sunday morning and noted that the meager remnants of the worlds biggest matzah were still standing proudly in their display case. I carefully picked my way through the matzah crumbs and tattered bits of saran wrap that people had ripped off of the display case (in order to get to the matzah) and entered the store.

The morning got off to a slow start which was just as well since I was the only one in the store. I spent about forty minutes folding and unfolding shirts in an effort to pass the time. When that got boring (as it inevitably does) I pretended that one of the 13XL shirts was a ball of pizza dough and flung it up into the air in an effort to perfect my pizza making skills. Five minutes and several "pies" later I was joined in the store by one of my coworkers (the one who has an affinity for screeching at bugs and an aversion to any sort of manual labor) and a rather unamused looking manager who pointedly reminded me about the cameras in the store and that the clothing was for selling and not playing with.

I promised not to trow any more shirts at the ceiling and the manager teetered back to her office leaving me with my delightful coworker for company. I resumed my shirt folding duties while my coworker sat on the black leather stool that we're not really supposed to sit on and regaled me with tales of her pesach misadventures. Apparently she had been awake for three days straight and hadn't bothered eating anything since the day before which in my humble opinion, seems like a pretty dumb thing to do. 

After listening to her complain about how hungry she was for a solid ten minutes, I figured I ought to do something about it. Since I didn't have the authority to fire her and I wasn't about to share my snacks, I seemed to be out of luck.  Just as I was about to give hope, a rouge piece of saran wrap floated across the floor like some sort of divine sign and came to a rest near my feet. "The giant matzah!" I exclaimed to my somewhat disconcerted coworker who seemed perturbed that I had interrupted her riveting tales. I ran outside to grab some of the matzah and was dismayed to discover that in the hour since I had last seen it, it had completely and utterly disappeared. Not just the matzah itself but the display case, crumbs and bits of saran wrap too. As if it had never even been there.

My coworker didn't seem overly upset about the disappearance as she had been less than enthusiastic about eating matzah that had been standing in a display case for a little over a week with nothing more than saran wrap to protect it from "hundreds of grubby little hands".  About an hour later she went home seemingly unable to cope with her unrelenting hunger pains and sheer exhaustion. 

The rest of my shift passed by uneventfully and I was more than happy when it came to an end.
I never did figure out where the matzah went but I hope its in a better place now.
I wonder if they'll make worlds biggest cheesecake for shavous... 
We'll just have to wait and see.  

Friday, April 18, 2014

Natural Progression

Yesterday afternoon I decided to check up on the worlds biggest matzah on my way out of work. It seemed to have developed a hole in the middle of the matzah but aside from that seemed fine. 
Admittedly, I was impressed at how much of the matzah was still left....

Here's a picture of the matzah from a couple of hours ago. Clearly the limited restaurant selections in the mall are driving some people to make do with what there is. Unfortunately for worlds biggest matzah, its the only edible display in the mall.... 


How much longer will the matzah last? Join us next time for more thrilling updates on the matzah saga!

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Worlds Biggest Matzah

This past week I did everything in my power to avoid the dreaded pesach cleaning. I was doing pretty well until Wednesday when I had a day off and was asked if I would mind cleaning the upstairs mirpeset. It was nice and sunny out so I put on a bathing suit (and plenty of sunscreen) and got to work. It took some work but it looks much nicer out there and since I cleaned off the swing and chairs, we can sit outside during pesach (provided that the birds and bats refrain from defecating on it again...).

On Thursday night my luck took a turn for the worst as I was roped into cleaning out the ovens after dinner. My mom gave me super cool gloves to wear that made me feel like an evil scientist, so it wasn't all bad.
In retaliation for making me do work I have not yet cleaned my room for the pascal holiday (though this is mainly due to my extreme laziness and aversion to cleaning).

Yesterday morning I arrived at work to find what appeared to be a very large matzah in front of the store. Upon closer investigation I discovered a sign claiming that it was in fact the "worlds largest matzah".
On the way out of work I stopped to take a picture and noticed that someone had decided to grab some matzah as a snack or souvenir of sorts.
I wonder how long it will survive in this in this city with its ostensibly ravenous inhabitants. 

Friday, April 4, 2014

That Time That We Almost Had A Pet At Work.

During one particularly boring day at work I was re-reorganizing the machsan when I heard a shrill scream emanate from the other side of the room. Further investigation revealed that we had some sort of bug-like creature hiding behind the water cooler on the counter.  The shrewd creature in question did not appear to be a fan of my coworker and went with the "if I can't see you, you can't see me" approach hoping to blend into the counter top and fade from our minds.

My coworker however, was not so easily fooled. Luckily for the creature (I use the word creature because my coworker insisted on standing in front of the cooler shrieking every time the bug made any sort of movement thus blocking my view and eliminating my chances of discovering the source of her obvious dismay be it bug, rat or water cooler.) she seemed to have no intention of brutally murdering it but instead was content looming over it while yelling various insults in its general direction.

At some point another coworker walked in to make herself a cup of coffee and wasn't overly thrilled to discover that the water cooler (and heater) was being held captive by her seemingly less sane coworker. The situation was explained and both coworkers agreed that the best course of action would be to stand close (but not too close) to the counter staring and yelling at the creature until it either left or disappeared. Much to their dismay, the steadfast creature proved to be a worthy adversary and hid behind the cooler with unwavering determination. 

After watching the three struggle I decided that perhaps it was time to offer my services. I found a cup and moved the water cooler off the counter exposing the poor little creature. I plopped the cup down on top of it and then remembered that the back door was locked and had a very loud and annoying alarm that went off every time you touched the door. This was going to be slightly more complicated than originally anticipated...

The minutes ticked by and I began to wonder how the manager would feel about our obvious predicament. Almost as if on cue, the manager strode into the room to see why none of her employees were in the store. She took in the situation and then, since even she was unwilling to face the alarm on the back door, she told us to leave it under the cup as a pet (until it ran out of air and suffocated to death).

We stood around staring at it for a while watching its futile attempts to escape from its plastic confines. I'm still not entirely sure what kind of bug it was, sort of a cross between a cockroach and a cricket. Now that it was trapped in a plastic cage of death, my coworkers saw fit to take pity on it and decided that it was kind of cute and might make a nice pet after all.

I gave them an incredulous look followed by an "are you kidding me!?" and a "you do realize that its suffocating to death...?". They declined to comment and resumed their arduous task of making coffee (and preventing me from lifting the cup to let more air in)  while their new pet continued to make pitiful attempts to escape or at least find more air.

When they were done making their coffee I took a pair of shoes that I had been organizing on the shelves and gave the poor little bugger a (hopefully) swift and relatively painless death. I then wiped it off of the bottom of the shoe and counter and laid him to rest, in the garbage can. 
R.I.P. nameless bug-thing, you will be missed....