You Can Have This Back…

Whenever the store opens, we always expect the returns to come in. I’m always waiting for the first return, so I can get it done with. Today, the woman comes in with a bag, ready to return. She hands me items that can’t be returned, but really, I don’t care. I don’t want issues, stress, or arguments at the beginning of the day, because I’ll have several more hours of legitimate irritation time anyway. So I just take the return, as she rummages through my counter–looking at things she’s not supposed to, grabbing coupons that are for buying customers and putting them in her purse. She’s really pushing my patience-buttons, but I let her do as she pleases, as long as I can get her out.

After the transaction, she hands me the bag she brought the returns in with, and says to me, “You can have this back.” Okay, thanks. I look at the bag from another store, a competitor, and let my eyes roll deeply into my skull, as I crumple it and throw it in the trash. “Thanks. Have a great day.”

Customer Type: The Blind, Capitalist, The Dumb

Advertisement

The Mirror

I have read many different theories on mirrors. Some discuss how intelligent creatures can recognize themselves in a mirror, versus other less-cognizant creatures who see a reflection as a competitor, a friend, or a mate yet not recognizing it is them. There are theories which say we develop a sense of self, of being, when we first stare into a mirror–because we are no longer disembodied, but we actually see and know what we look like and in our minds we fully exist from this point on. We see, therefore we are. A mirror does much to tell us about ourselves.

The store I work at has a doorway which divides different sections of our store. I have so many people who walk by that door, look directly at it and then continue walking. They then approach me, asking, “Where is your other sections? I can’t find it.” I tell them they just walked past it, and they reply, “Oh, I thought that was a mirror.” Really? What does this say about you, oh customer?

Oh so curious that someone can look upon a doorway, mistaking it for a mirror, admitting this mistaken fact, and yet they themselves were not in their imaginary mirror–they saw no reflection. Either these people are vampire-lovers, which are in high demand these days, and they found total elation and self-completion in the idea they no longer have a reflection, or there is something significant about intelligence and the fact people can’t recognize they have no reflection in a mirror.

This would be like believing stairs only go down–so how do you get back up? Or asking how much wood can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Does a falling tree make noise if no one is around to hear it? Money is power, time is money, yet humanity created both of these abstract concepts and allowed them to control us all. Humanity has forgotten what it has created and lost control over its creation. Ah, humanity, you make me cry. You make me weep.