I looked down at the contract again. It was signed Miranda Tenoba, a capsuleer Hauler pilot whom had not only decided to hopefully donate a Navy Comet to the Advent Celebration if it was within her means, but also had a “mystery ship” enroute to me in Dal.
She had decided even I deserved a Christmas gift.
I smiled. That smile remained all day.
ADVENT DAY 23
PRIZE: Well, these last two days we’ve got a lot of stuff to give away still. Here’s the list:
- $100 Racial Theme Pack from the EVE Online Store
- Mystery Fit Retribution
- 1 Dramiel
- 1 Rupture
- T2 Shield Purgers Arbitrator
- 1 Scythe
- 1 Rifter
- 1 Year Free Hosting at LoneTrek hosting
- 20,000 units winner choice federation navy hybrid charges
- 1 Ishkur Assault ship
- 500 million ISK (100 million part of Dec 21st prize)(100 million part of Dec 22nd prize)
- Cameo Appearance in a fiction piece by Hallan Turrek
- Cameo Appearance in a fiction piece by Roc Wieler
- 1 Cynabal
- ` PLEX care of CCP
- 1 Navy Comet
TASK: The last two days before Christmas are upon us! I hope everyone has finished their shopping! In fact, why don’t you share with us one of your most dreadfully funny Christmas shopping experiences with us! That’s an order, pilot.
Post your entry in the comments below, or email me at adventcelebration@gmail.com. I will announce today’s winner at 10 PM EST.
Congratulations to Idemus, whom has won the following:
- 100 million ISK
- Navy Comet Blueprint Copy
- Ishkur Assault ship
- Rifter
- Cameo appearance in a fiction piece by Hallan Turrek
- Scythe
Wow, what a prize pack!
ROC'S RAMBLINGS 
So I go shopping in Wal-Mart a week ago. It’s pretty late at night, cause I went after 2nd shift.
So only three registers are open, and the wait is about twenty minutes. I get through the line, up to the register, and the clock ticks over to midnight. Well apparently they have to reset their registers at that point. So as I finish getting my stuff onto the conveyer belt, the lady behind the counter tells me we’ll need to switch registers.
Fine by me, I don’t mind a bit. I’ve worked in retail before, and it takes a whole lot to get me mad in the first place.
I start to load my stuff back into the cart, and the lady turns off the register, walks over to a new one, and starts ringing up new customers. A new lines forms up longer than the one I initially waited in as my face slowly dawns with disbelief.
I roll my cart over to the lady, flip her off, say “Go fuck yourself,” and walk out of the store.
All this would be slightly more impressive if it didn’t simply mean I had to go back in the next day and get all the stuff again.
*Hallan mutters
[OOC] Ok — I was going to write this up in character, but it’s too crazy to not be planetside for this one…
Every year my wife and I have taken one of the kids to pick out our Christmas tree. Last year was our 2nd oldest daughter’s turn. The year before, we took the oldest daughter and she found the cutest guy to flirt with… yes, they both flirted and we actually got a deal on the tree! This year, however, was not going to be the same – with high hopes of another fabulous tree finding event, we headed out with daughter #2.
Now we had moved from one end of town to the other, so this year, we found ourselves at the southern branch of our favorite tree nursery where we were sure to find the same attentive sales people. As we scouted for “the tree that sang to us” we were approached by a few different sales people, all trying to help us find “the tree that sang to us”, but to no avail. We shoo’d them away and continued our search.
Then it happened!
“he” found us!
Dirty, beach bum blonde hair and an orange boa… I’m sure he was wearing more than that, but that is all we could see… and all we remember, still. Forever to be remembered as “sketcher boy”(and not named for the shoes), the young man approached us, throwing caution and good manners to the wind. He was certail that the short, fat tree was singing to us. When we assured him that it was not, he found a 14 foot tree, “hid” behind it, and helped the tree “sing to us”. Having looked at every single standing tree in the lot and finding no perfect singing tree, the gentleman took us “around back”. Were we frightened? A little.
He lead us to a dark corner of the lot and unveiled a row of heaped up, still tied trees lying under a tarp. “This”, he told us, “would be hte place where we would find our tree!” He stood one tree up, then another. Finally giving in, we decided on our tree.
Did it sing to us? -No-
Did we want to get the hell out of there? -like a scout warping into an enemy fleet-
Our friendly Christmas tree sales person chopped the bottom off of our tree while we paid for it and asked the kind lady who took our money if this particular gentleman was always this — enthusiastic. She rolled her eyes at us in a knowing way and apologized for him. While he secured the tree to the top of our truck, he lost his orange boa in the tree several times, but did that stop him? It didn’t even slow him down – he was a man on a mission! He was going to make our Christmas perfect – whether we liked it or not!
And we heard him exclaim, as we drove out of sight, “Where’s my boa, y’all? Sketch ya next year! Good night!”
…Needless to say, we invested in a fake tree this year.
Up until last year, I never bought gifts for other people due to me lacking any money until after Christmas, but since I had an abundance, I felt I the spirit of giving! You know those stories from black Friday? Well, I thought I was clever by waiting until the monday after to avoid the horrifying violence.
I wasn’t as clever as I thought. While in the middle If the line someone tried to take three Wii games out of my cart. After delivering my verbal assault, I returned my attention to moving through the line again. I arrived at the front of the line, checked out the massive amount of stuff, and headed out the store. Wait… I was missing a few games….
I turn around to see that my “friend grabbed them back after I stopped paying attention to him. And by now, he had just finished paying for them and quickly diapleared into a crowd.
I had to respect the ninja inside this one.
I can’t say for sure if this is all that funny, but my most interesting shopping experience over the holidays would have to be my attempt at purchasing “clothing” for my wife. I went to a local store, knowing her size, but also knowing that she’s fairly particular about her after-hours attire, and started looking through some “interesting” items. While in the store I was approached by what, in my estimation, was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. She commented on the clothing (in an unusually deep voice for a woman), and as I soon found out, was thinking about how it would look on me. As it turns out, she wasn’t really a she in the socially accepted version. Finding it somewhat uncomfortable, I tried to make my way to the cashier, only to have the she-man follow me, and checkout right behind me. As I left the store, she/he stopped me and gave me his/her phone number.
I later returned the clothing to the store and just bought a gift card for the wife. And no, I did not call the number…
My friend is a horable person to shop for every year I buy him something he buys for himself 3 days before christmas so I waited last year untell Christmas eve and I went to best buy to pick up his present. I’m standing in line and guess who walks in my friend walks right over to where I got his present and picks one up. I yelled across the store for him to put that shit down. He came over to the line and we laughed about it becuse it was a running joke between us. I bought the present and gave it to him there that bastard.
I was sitting in our local mall yesterday, chowing down onsome absolutely fantastic cheesesteak in the food court, watching people as they ran aroun all crazy like. I then started realizing something… Is EVERY middle schooler emo now? Sure enough, another hopeless faced group of little peoplewalked around the corner. Crazy hair, gosh-aweful fashion sense… I was starting to loose hope for our next generation. I looked around, and saw em everywhere! Was there a emo convention or something? Just weird….
The things you see in malls….
PS I later realized that perhaps the concentration of Emo middle-schoolers were perhaps not representative of society as a whole, but only in those middleschoolers that wandered around shopping malls.
So I came back home for a couple of days before Christmas sine I work on Christmas this year and my parents and brother and I went to walmart to finish the gift purchases. I had managed to slip away to buy my brothers gift, but he had gotten wise and was combing through the store looking to find me to ruin the surprise. It was a scene straight out of a spy movie, I ducked and weaved through isles, him right on my tail. Finally I managed to find a half isle where instopped and waited. After a minute I caught his reflection in a security camera dome and saw him heading for the main exit. I dashed toward a side non-public exit and showed the employee near the door
My reciept and escaped. My brother was furious that he missed his chance to ruin the surprise and hasn’t talked to me since.
One year I was shopping with my grandfather. He liked to take me places in December for a gift or 2. Well, he loves to kid around ALLOT and does so in public. Well, having a huge interest in legos I wanted something that was well around the 100$$ area. Of course it was a Christmas present and he decided he was going to get it for me. Well, we make it to the cashier and he gives it the them while saying this colorful remark. “Ring this up for dumb-ass over here.” What! He didn’t just say that in public. It was partially true though and I gave my best smart-ass answer. “Duh colorful toys”. The cashier gave a very interesting look that I’d never seen before as we walked away. We get into the car and he comments, “Thanks for making me look like a jack-ass in there.” Was I done with him, no. “Well I didn’t help you look like anything…” We laughed all the way home. 😀
My brother has a terrible habit of buying things for himself while Xmas shopping for the family. One time in best buy I thought I’d get him a Adam sandler box set, since he’s such a fan. I was checking out, hoping he wasn’t going to come along, but he did and sure enough he got in line and had the same box set. I decided screw it and had the lady not ring in the DVDs and went back the next day and bought him a cd. It turns out I got the box set under the tree from him, and he still doesn’t have the box set. Maybe I’ll get it for him next year.
I don’t have any good Christmas buying stories, but I do have a good selling one. I was working on a lot, selling Christmas trees for my December job, when a dude in a mercedes pulls up. After having me pull out various trees, he picks out a nine foot monster. I politley make a fresh on the bottom of the trunk, trim some branches, ect. He says, since he’s in a Mercedes, that we should drive the tree to his house. I agree, so we tie the tree to my blazer and follow him home, with my boss coming along to make sure I don’t fuck anything up. We get to his house, I get the tree set up inside and go back outside, where my boss and the dude are talking. I say that everything is set up. He gives me a 1$ tip.
The next day, the dude comes in and tells my boss that he’s lost a 50$ pen somewhere and was wondering if anyone had seen it. Without looking away, my boss replies “nope, already looked. Didn’t see anything. Sure as he’ll made my Christmas.
made a few typos typos on iphone trying to make deadline, correct last paragraph:
The next day, the dude comes in and tells my boss that he’s lost a 50$ pen somewhere and was wondering if anyone had seen it. Without looking away, my boss replies “nope, already looked. Didn’t see anything”. Sure as hell made my Christmas.