The nice president of the local pro-choice society, of which I’m a member, asked if I’d take a turn at a Salvation Army kettle.  I said sure, and was given an envelope with signage, the secret word to receive the kettle, and a list of time slots with names in them.

Yesterday at 10:00 AM I arrived at the customer service desk of Extra Foods in Capri Mall and announced I was there to man the kettle.  I said the secret password, “turkey.”  The nice woman went into the back to get it, and then came out empty-handed.

She said, “That’s not the password.”  I opened the brown envelope and showed her the slip of paper with the word typed on it, and she pointed to the top of the sheet and said, “It says December 14th, not December 4th.”

I then showed her the other sheet, with the time slots and names filled in, and it was headed up December 4th.  She didn’t care, and said my password for the 4th was not correct, so away with me.  Of course I was thrilled at not having to do that for two hours.

When I came home I e mailed the president, who’s on holidays in San Diego, and she replied she was sure she’d booked it for the 4th.  Maybe, but not a soul was there when I arrived at 10:00, so obviously the 8:00 – 10:00 shift had been shooed away too.

I had a delivery to make to Sunshine Market, which I’d done on my way home from the debacle.  I then spent two hours packaging an order of 48 fruitcakes for Discover Wines.

As you know I sent a fruitcake to the food writer at the Kamloops News, and he went nuts, so there’ll be an article appearing any day complete with photo.  That’ll drive people into the Kamloops Discover Wines store, so the owner decided to be prepared and stock up.

I think I may have a total of 100 Decadents and maybe 50 Okanagan Harvests on hand, and for once, people will be learning a lesson.  When I say one small woman can only bake so much, please order early, next year they’ll know I’m not kidding.

I finally broke down and decided to try some on-line gift ordering.  At first it appeared to be another nightmare, such as when one tries to do a simple bank transaction on line.  However, after an hour or two, I seemed to get the hang of it.  I was finally able to order, and then wham! two days later the packaged arrived.  Delivery was free!

I then wondered why anyone would browse a store if you know exactly what you’re ordering.  For specifics like games, books and toys you can easily order on-line.  However, I find I still need to walk up and down aisles to gather inspiration for some people.

And then you’d never get the stuff I find at the thrift stores on-line anyway.  On Tuesday after my regular gig at the art gallery I stopped in at the Helping Hands Thrift Store.  I got a lot of adorable Christmas things, and the total was $7.23.  Hard to do that on-line as everything is 50% off at that great store on Tuesdays for those of us lucky enough to be over 55.