Sarah headed down to the break room, feeling a bit relieved. Sam had told her to take her lunch break while the business had slowed down a bit. Sarah ripped off her name bag and stuck it in her pocket, afraid that if she didn't she'd be mobbed by more customers on her way to her break. And Sarah needed this break.
No one that Sarah was very familiar with was in the break room when she got there. She looked around the room, and noticed one of the girls from the men's department crying, a person from shoes and someone else from the youth department were trying to calm her down. "Oh why" the girl, who Sarah remembered was Nora, cried out.
"It'll be ok Nora. That lady was crazy."
"She poured out her whole cup of coffee all over my fitting room" Nora sobbed. "I tried to help her, I really did. We don't even sell those brand of pants she was looking for." Nora put her head down on the table and wailed.
Sarah got her sandwich out from her locker. She has made a her lunch from the leftovers from Thanksgiving, and had a lovely turkey sandwich to eat. She couldn't really enjoy it with Nora sobbing though.
The man from the shoe department looked over at Sarah and asked "How's it going over in Sportware?"
Sarah was shocked, she hadn't even spoken to this man before, although she knew his name was Bill. She tried to muster up a response. "It's like...we are fighting a war we can't win."
Bill laughed heartily at this. "You got that right sister!"
Sarah felt like she should say something else, "How's everything in Shoes?"
"Oh we've had the normal crazies. The people who want to buy shoes that don't go together, people who want shoes that are two different sizes. Some lady left her kid alone and made this fort of shoe boxes...that took awhile to fix." Bill sighed but still seemed cheerful. "I've done Black Friday for six years now though, nothing really surprises me anymore." Bill nodded sagely.
Sarah didn't know how Bill did it. After only working half her shift she already never wanted to do another Black Friday again. Sarah thought of her own mother, and wondered if she was having similar craziness happening in her own store.
All too soon Sarah's break was over and she had to head back to her department. It looked as if a bomb had gone off, and Sam was trying her best to keep up with everything on her own. She desperately looked at Sarah and cried out, "Sarah check the underwear section. I haven't been able to get there." Sarah nodded and headed over there.
If the rest of Sportsware looked like a bomb had gone off, then the underwear section looked like the apocalypse had happened. Sarah groaned as she started putting a table that had a bunch of panties on it back in order, sorting out the ones that obviously didn't belong on that table at all. In fact she found some earrings and a pair of boxers on the table. She put them to the side hoping she'd have time to return them to their rightful departments. Sarah was concentrating so hard on putting things back in order she didn't notice a rather large woman approach her.
"Cuse me miss." The woman said, and Sarah jumped. "I need some help."
Sarah composed herself. "How can I help you?"
"Help me try on this bra dearie?"
Sarah looked terrified. She didn't understand. Her mind raced with a million thoughts and none of them made sense. Had this woman really just asked her to help her try on a bra? It didn't seem possible, but Sarah knew that anything was possible today. "What was that?" Sarah asked nervously hoping she had misheard the lady.
"I can't reach, can you help me with this bra?" Sarah wanted to run away, so very far away. In fact she wanted to do anything in the world except help this lady try on a bra. But Sarah knew that sometimes in life, you just gotta suck it up and do things you really didn't want to do.
"Alright." Sarah helped the lady hook the bra and put the straps over her shoulders. The bra fit her.
"Thanks dearie." Sarah helped the lady out of the bra, and was extremely grateful when she left the area.
Sarah rushed through the rest of the underwear section, and made sure that it looked presentable. She didn't care if it was perfect anymore, she knew it would probably get destroyed again. Sarah left the area as quickly as possible.
Business was still going strong in the rest of the store. Sarah helped Sam with some more returns, when she heard Emily scream from the fitting room. She ran back and found Emily and Sam standing in front of one of the fitting rooms.
"Oh god, they peed in the stall why would they do that?" Emily cringed. "Ughh the smell I want to barf."
"It's ok, I'm going to get some cleaning stuff. Emily, just make sure no one uses this stall. Sarah, try to hold down the fort while I'm gone." Sam rushed off.
Emily looked back at the line of people waiting to try on clothes. "Well they won't be happy about this." Emily looked at Sarah sadly. Sarah just gave Emily a sad look back before she had to go help a customer who was raving about having to find five matching sweat suits in a color Sarah was sure they didn't even have.
Sarah wanted to hide. She was getting seriously stressed out. All the customers were acting like zoo animals, the department looked like a twister had gone through it, and Sarah had reached her limit on dealing with everything. Still she trudged forward, knowing the end was in sight. Soon her replacement would be coming in, and Sarah could go home. She just had to make it through the rest of her shift without any more crazy incidents.
Luckily for Sarah, it seemed like she was going to get her way. She helped a few more customers, including one who absolutely had to have the outfit one of the mannequins was wearing. Sarah and Emily's replacements both showed up on time, and they were finally able to leave. They wished Sam good luck before they both went to clock out and get their things from the break room.
"That was like...oh my gosh..." Emily moaned. "My feet are killing me now too. ARGH!"
They entered the break room which was much emptier than it had been the last time Sarah was in it. The two girls noticed a pair of shoes poking out from beside the soda machine. Sarah went over to look and saw Jenn sitting there with her head in her hands.
"Jenn, you ok?" Sarah asked.
"Ahhhhh! NO MORE PRICE CHECKS!" Jenn cried out.
"It's ok Jenn, it's over now."
Jenn looked up hopefully. "It's over?"
"YUP!" Emily said cheerfully.
Jenn seemed to snap out of her temporary work induced insanity. "We did it...we survived Black Friday!" Jenn cheered. She stood up and dusted off her pants. The girls all took turns high fiving each other before they got their things out of their lockers and headed for the door.
"Should we go celebrate somewhere?" Emily said, practically dancing now, even though she had just been complaining abut her feet.
"I don't want to go to any more stores today, I don't think I can handle it." Jenn said, making sure her name tag was removed so she wouldn't get any attention from the customers.
"Well okay." Emily pouted.
"How was your Thanksgiving Jenn?" Sarah asked, as they finally stepped out the front door into the chilly autumn air.
"Oh it went better than I expected. My dad's girlfriend is a nice girl, and she made us a great dinner. I didn't really talk about anything too personal with my dad though. I didn't really know what to say to him. But I guess I'll have lots of chances to ask him all the questions I always wanted to ask him now." Jenn smiled slightly. "I'm glad I'm giving him a chance though. We'll see how it goes. How was your guys Thanksgiving?"
Realizing Jenn didn't know about Emily's situation yet, Emily filled Jenn in with all the details. "Well for now I'm just gonna stay with Sarah, but we are gonna go see Joey to see if we can sort this all out." Emily finished.
"Oh wow that's crazy Emily. I hope you can work it out with Joey." Jenn sympathized.
"If I can't I still got those goons" Emily shifted her eyes mysteriously.
The girls laughed and headed for their cars. "Good luck!" Jenn called out before getting in her car.
"I think you should try and call Joey first," Sarah said before they started driving.
Emily made a sound of agreement, and tried to call Joey. When he didn't answer their house phone, she tried his cell phone. Her lack of success at reaching him showed on her face. "Hmmm why isn't he answering me?" Emily said worryingly.
"Let's just go see if he's at your house." Sarah said starting the car up.
When they reached Emily's apartment building, it became painfully obvious that Joey wasn't there, his car wasn't there. Still Emily and Sarah went up to her apartment and found no sign of him. Emily scrawled out a note and put it on the kitchen table. It said "Joey, please call me when you get home. I'm staying with Sarah right now but we really have to talk." Satisfied that she had done all she could, Emily and Sarah left the apartment.
"I hope he's alright." Emily sighed. Sarah patted her on the shoulder in a reassuring way.
"Come on let's get back to my house, I'm exhausted."
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