Food plates and the mistake stakeout

Only three more days! Not that I'm counting or anything ...

They usually take out full-timers on their last day for a business dinner, but not me. I suppose I haven't put in enough time to count, and frankly I expected that they wouldn't take me out. It's funny, though, because a group of my coworkers are taking me out anyway.

My boss has been avoiding me and searching desperately for any mistakes I might make. Today, for example, I unpacked a huge shipment. It took me all morning to finish, but I delayed lunch until 2:30 in the afternoon, so I could return and design the display. After I finished unpacking and before I went to lunch, however, I quickly stacked all of the merchandise out onto the display so it was buyable even while I was at lunch. I mentioned that I didn't design it, just stacked it, to a few people on my way out the door.

Sure enough, when I got back my coworkers were all laughing. "Boy, did you call it," they told me. The boss had come out of his hiding spot, errr office, shortly after I had left and looked around at my department.

"Oh," he told them all snootily, "I guess this is how she merchandises when she's leaving in a week."

I knew he'd do that. His favorite thing in life is to uncover mistakes, and yet I have never seen him find one. I'm way too conscientious for his schemes.

The merchandise I put out today was dinnerware with Chinese characters on it. We had a few Chinese tourists come by right before the end of my day and they were laughing hysterically.

"What?" I asked the two woman. "What does it say?"

They kept laughing and pulled out their digital cameras, shooting pictures of my display. One of the women pointed at a platter and said "Meat!" The other pointed at a bowl and said "Vegetables!"

In the end, I held up a "Food" plate and posed manically for the camera. I wonder how that'll turn out when they arrive back home. "Look at what these stupid Americans are trying to sell us! Plates that say 'food.'"

We really do sell anything.