KNOXVILLE — Rhonda Teasley would like whoever measured the back door at 9630 Kingston Pike to come back and measure it again with the door open.
Teasley, 52, is the seasonal shift lead at the Spirit Halloween store there, which closes Oct. 31 and reopens Nov. 6 as Tennessee’s first Spirit Christmas. She has worked the Nov. 1 changeover in that building for three different chains and can have the skeletons down in 90 minutes. The six-foot animatronic by the back wall has outlasted every one of them and is on each store’s inventory sheet.
“The first time we got it as far as the stockroom,” she said. “Then somebody said put it back, they’re coming to get it. I don’t know who they meant. I clocked out at five.”
The new Spirit Christmas crew has inherited the figure along with a handwritten note saying it comes apart. Teasley has looked for the screws. There are several, and she would rather not find out which ones hold up the top half while she’s standing under it. The original carton is gone. A manager threw it out years ago for the room.
“They ask me if it’s ours, and I say it’s on our sheet. Then they want to know if it was here when we got here. Well, yes. I’ve told them that. I put it in the email this time.”
A wrapping paper display has been set up around the figure and clears the elbow if the bottom roll is taken off. Teasley has asked that nobody plug it in while she is back there.
The hand truck is at another store on Kingston Pike.