So, sit back and get ready to be entertained....
To celebrate Christmas this year, I have decided to tell my faithful readers two tales. This one, the first, I have been holding back for quite some time, as not only have I been waiting until right before Christmas to tell it, but it's also one of the most hilarious stories I remember from the days of Cash Register Hell. So here goes -- this is the Infamous "Easy Lover" Story.
During the lead-up to Christmas last year (2007), shortly after Halloween, the company who owned Cash Register Hell sent down a mandate that our satellite radio stations -- in all three stores -- be turned to the Christmas music channel from that point all the way through January 1st. This meant that not only were we to be treated to a month and a half of Christmas music, but said Christmas music would continue to be played in the store a full week after Christmas was over.
This didn't really affect the dayshift crew in the store, as we were Cash Register Hell then, during the holidays, when our business was booming and they were too busy to hear, let alone pay attention to, the music blaring from the PA system above our heads. For the mainstay night crew, however -- which at that point consisted of me, Dee, Hunch, and Max -- when the store was empty during the night, we were to get the full Christmas experience, and by God nothing was going to stop it. As I've written before on numerous occasions, listening to the same fifteen to twenty Christmas songs over, and over, and over again, in various styles and interpretations, will slowly drive a group of tired, hardworking men batshit insane.
However, there was a small glimmer of hope in sight for us -- a few weeks after the Christmas music started, we got a few bad wind/snow/ice storms, including the big one that knocked out my power and cable for a week and sent temperatures in our electrically-heated apartment plunging down into the high 30s. Not only did it disrupt a lot of other things, it scrambled our satellite radio at work. Something happened to it, we don't know what. But when things settled down, the company-- determined to force the holiday season by any means possible -- patched in a direct feed to a radio station in Kansas City known during this time of year as "The Kansas City Christmas Station," simply because after November 1, said station plays nothing but Christmas songs 24/7. Yes, really. Now, Kansas City isn't incredibly close to us, but it is the largest city in a few hours' driving distance in any direction.
So there we were, in the middle of December, stocking 1,200-piece trucks three nights a week, working 9PM-7AM or later (because there wasn't the "no overtime" rule then; sometimes we wouldn't get out of there until around 8:30 or 9) and being forced to listen to the same songs, looped on someone's automated iPod in Kansas City and hooked up to a transmitter, the entire time.
But, miraculously, whoever had filled said iPod with the station's Christmas songs had made a mistake, and the mistake was this: every twenty or thirty songs, the Christmas music would be interrupted -- briefly, but still interrupted -- by the Phil Collins song "Easy Lover."
You know the song, I'm sure.
Easy lover
She'll get a hold on you, believe it
She's like no other
Before you know it you'll be on your knees
She's an easy lover
She'll take your heart but you won't feel it
She's like no other
And I'm just trying to make you see...
Every twenty or thirty songs, for four minutes and forty-three seconds, we were suddenly thrust into Phil Collins World. I've mentioned Phil Collins Night before, but this was a whole new level of absurdity. This was just plain odd.
I think the first few times we heard it, we stopped what we were doing and in a daze all simultaneously looked upward at the store's PA speakers, as if we couldn't believe it wasn't another Christmas song.
"What the hell does 'Easy Lover' have to do with Christmas?" I asked Dee.
"I don't know, but it's not Jingle Bells, Rudolph, or Winter Wonderland. Just enjoy it."
As the days went on, we got used to it. Dare I say, we even liked it. And then -- as he always did -- one night Dee had heard the song so many times that he'd memorized the lyrics, and began to sing along with it.
Now, Dee was a born singer. He sang quite badly, but he loved to do it when we were at work -- mainly because he was about six or seven years older than me, and grew up with most of the music they would play on the '70s or '80s station in the store. "Easy Lover" was right up his alley. So when I heard him singing along with it, while I was in the midst of stocking the baking aisle, I didn't think much of it.
Until, a few aisles away, I heard another voice join in. It was Hunch. The next time the song played, Hunch and Dee sang it loud and proud, and I began to think to myself holy shit, the Kansas City Christmas Station has brainwashed my coworkers into warbling Phil Collins.
The next night we all worked together, sure enough, "Easy Lover" made its regular appearances. This time Hunch and Dee were joined by Max, who was whistling the tune quietly instead of singing.
By the time the song had spun around a second time, I began singing along as well, as if I were entranced. I had been bitten by the musical vampire that was Phil Collins, and I was under the sway of his soft-rock chants.
So, imagine if you will, the middle of December, on truck nights, four grown men singing and/or whistling -- from all over the store in different aisles, mind you -- Easy Lover. Usually at the top of their lungs.
Looking back on it now, I think it was a form of venting, a way to release the frustration and end the monotony of stocking those aisles on those cold, dead nights. A way to break free from the endless cycle of Christmas carols droning on and on above our heads. It may not have been our first choice of song, goddammit, but it was what we had to work with. Sometimes Elder or Jarhead would give us a funny look when they walked by and saw us singing, but none of us cared. Not only was it fun, it was one of the most surreal experiences I've ever had in my job.
After Christmas, we all had our requisite few days off for the holiday and, while the Christmas music continued until the 27th or so, we didn't really notice it. The moment had passed, and with it the Easy Lover. The satellite radio kicked back on to its normal stations of the '70s or '80s, and we resumed our normal nights of work -- most of us largely forgetting the Phil Collins sing-a-long. When I brought up the subject with Max a few months ago, he barely remembered any of it, and Dee and Hunch are long gone from that store's employee roster now -- leaving me as the only singer who's still employed there, even though it's now no longer Cash Register Hell.
So that, my friends, is the Easy Lover story. Regrettably, we do not have the radio tuned to the Kansas City Christmas Station this year; it's instead been locked on the "Sounds of the Holidays" station since shortly before Thanksgiving, and I have not had the opportunity to actually see if we can get said radio station in our town so I can see if "Easy Lover" is still on the playlist.
Yet, even if no one else remembers it, from now on whenever I hear Phil Collins -- and especially "Easy Lover" -- I can't help but laugh hysterically and remember those nights full of sing-alongs last year in Cash Register Hell, when for a brief few minutes two or three times a night, we had an escape from the Christmas carols and were able to let it all out.
And, of course, I still sing along.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
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