Use Your Words

Today’s post is a writing challenge that I hope you find as much fun to read as it was to write. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the post will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge. Here’s a fun twist; no one participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

At the end of this post you’ll find links to the other blogs featuring this challenge. Check them all out, see what words they got and how they used them.

I’m using: snotty ~ cursing ~ cold ~ dud ~ random.
They were submitted by: Stacy Sews and Schools

I’m not sure I can use snotty, cursing, cold, dud and random all in the same story. Oh, wait, I just used them in one sentence. Done!

Yes, I can hear your sing-song voice “cheat, cheat, never beat.”

OK, so here’s a story. This happened a few years ago.

The kids were in school and I decided to get a job. I didn’t stay long for a number of reasons; I didn’t like the job, I didn’t like the culture of the company, and once summer vacation came I wasn’t willing to have my kids sitting around the house all day alone with nothing to do. And, of course, working seriously cut into my baking time.

White Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Squares

Anyway, the job was as a sales person for an on-line company. There was no store, just a web site. Obviously, no matter what callers said or did, I could not be snotty. This was extremely difficult for someone who deals with negativity through sarcasm, take my word for it. I got the most absurd callers asking the most random questions about products; a wall mounted wine rack where the wine is held upside down by its neck above the rack, someone wanted to know if you could hang them right side up below instead. Well, there’s this little thing called gravity that makes me fairly certain they’d fall and break. Duh (something I couldn't say).

When I wasn’t taking calls, I’d jump on the company web site and answer emails about products. This was much more tedious as conversations took so much longer. The good news; at least when someone asked you an absurd question by email they couldn’t hear you cursing under your breath as you were politely explaining their idiocy.

There’s one emailer who I will never forget. He was obviously foreign and didn’t have a total grasp of the English language. He was asking about these very large rocking horses. We went back and forth for quite a while. They were expensive so I wanted to be sure to answer all his questions prior to taking an order.

Finally he seemed read to order. Finally. And he would order multiple rocking horses. Score! There was just one final email, this time not a question, a request; he explained that the horses were for a special occasion, a festival of some sort and he needed me to assure him that the horses I sent him were male.

OK, more cursing under my breath and another email: you DO understand that these horses are toys, right?

His response was that we had been working together for a while and before he placed his order he wanted to be sure that he was clear that he was trusting me to make sure that he was sent males.

I’m sure this guy thought his sales person was a dud, but let me tell you this; it’d be a cold day in hell before I’d be caught in a warehouse with my a$$ in the air and my head in the nether-regions of a toy horse checking for  . . . ummm. . . cinnamon sticks and nutmeg.

So I did the only thing I could think of. I forwarded the email to my manager.

Now I know that managers were expected to do anything for a sale. And although mine wasn’t at work for a few hours the following afternoon, I’d like to think that’s because he had a doctor’s appointment.

Be sure to click on these links and read the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Juicebox Confession

Confessions of a part-time working mom

Battered Hope

Spatulas on Parade

Evil Joy Speaks

Stacy Sews and

Searching for Sanity

Just A Little Nutty

The Bergham's Life Chronicles

Follow me home . . .

Dates 2 Diapers 2

White Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Squares

                                           www.BakingInATornado.com
 
Printable Recipe
 
Ingredients:
1 box Yellow cake mix
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin
4 eggs
½ cup orange juice
½ cup oil
1 tsp pumpkin spice
¼ tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
½ cup cinnamon baking chips, dusted with flour
½ cup white chocolate chips, dusted with flour
8 oz cream cheese, softened
½ stick butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup eggnog, orange juice, apple cider or milk
 
Directions:
* Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 X 13 baking pan.
*Beat the cake mix, canned pumpkin, eggs, ½ cup orange juice, oil, pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves until well mixed.
*Mix in the cinnamon and white chocolate baking chips.
*Pour into prepared pan and bake for 28 to 32 minutes or until center springs back to the touch.
*Cool completely.
*Beat the rest of the ingredients until smooth. Frost the cake.
*Store in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature before serving.