Making a Boner

Each Christmas season I’ve worked at my store, I’ve seen some rather interesting characters pop-up out of the shadows of the retail dungeon. From guys with their butt-cracks showing to turtle-turtle boys, but there was one guy who comes to mind recently, because  of all the language barriers I’ve seen.

Mind you, he was recommended by a coworker who probably rues the day he did any such thing as bring this guy to work with us. He was a very strange man. When standing in the fitting room, and people would enter with a handful of clothes, he’d welcome them saying, “Can I help you with anything?” Not, “Do you need a room,” or “I have a perfect room for you.” He’d often get the reply, “Um, I need a room?”

He had a particular smell about him, like unwashed body odor. One moment I remember best is when he was sweaty, very sweaty, and he was also holding a pile of clothes. Do you think he put the clothes down to wipe his face? Oh, no, no, perish forbid the thought! He just plopped his face down into the shirts and rubbed his face in them. Refreshed, he was able to continue putting out his clothes. Wonderful!

Of all the weird, absentminded things he did, not including having a loud, verbal political argument about our current President in the middle of the sales floor with customers; there was a time customers from Tahiti came in. Yes, they are known as a part of French Polynesia, where French colonizers washed over and left many of them with the national language of French. They entered the store, greeted by him, and he asks where they are visiting from, “Tahiti.” Oh, they would also rue the day they revealed that fact. “Ah, bon jour, bon jour,” he started to pull out his French vocabulary, which sounded mostly like things you pick up watching French movies and listening to a certain song including, “Couche avec moi?”

As he followed them around, mostly unwillingly on the customers part, he kept speaking in this version of French, and they would routinely yell at him, “We don’t speak French! Leave us alone!” This continued, until the women said, “Okay, this is enough, let’s just leave.” As they left, he went right up to the doors, waving and yelling at them, “Au revoir! Au revoir!” And I could hear the women screaming at him, “You asshole, we don’t speak French!”

President’s Day, Better!

So my coworker was cashing out customers from California. Today, our store had some super-sale, when all other stores seemed to have rather weak sales. The customer was talking about how busy it is in our store.

My coworker replies, “Today, it’s worse than Christmas.”
“It’s not worse, it’s better,” the woman corrected her.

Actually, she made the perfect example of why it actually was worse. The difference between Christmas sales versus today’s sale is that people are shopping for themselves, they aren’t buying gifts for other people. They are being as selfish, self-centered, and demanding as possible for their own personal benefit. There isn’t generosity in their hearts, not that there is much going on during Christmas, to be honest, but their aims were totally personal during today’s sale–I want to get the best deal for me!

People were trying on dozens of outfits for themselves. They were waiting impatiently to get into the fitting room, pushing in front of each other, getting rude and irritated because of other customers–taking it out on the salespeople. Dozens of stock-checks every minute, all for ‘me’. Find me more sizes. Find me more colors. I want to try on everything. Clothes piling up everywhere. Me, me, me. That is the perfect President’s Day celebration, the perfect example of what it is to live here. Forget Christmas, go President’s Day!

No, today wasn’t better, it actually was worse than Christmas. She had it right the first time.