As many of you know, I work at the supermarket. This means I work with people every day. Normally I love my job — in fact I still do, even though there are certainly time periods when I'm not terribly pleased. Well one of those times was a few days ago. It was rather off-putting in fact.
I was serving one of the regular customers. He's a man in likely his fifties or sixties (I'm horrible at calculating age from appearances) with a slender build, and wears clothing styles that remind me of the sixties or seventies — suits. The most noticeable feature of this man is his mutton chops. They truly stand out, and look good on him somehow, perhaps it's just because they suit his facial bone structure? I don't know. After I put through his order, he pulled out a Wal-mart flyer from inside his store flyer, pointed at the two dresses on the cover and asked me which one I preferred out of the blue. I paused, not knowing what to say and finally pointed at the white one and said something to the effect of, uh, I like this one best. He answered, I like the vampire neckline, which struck me as odd, before he left the store. As much as I'm studying vampires, I don't tend to think of V-necklines as vampire necklines.
The thing is, he returned to the store, this time while I was running the service desk, a couple of hours later. He pulls out the dress that I had pointed at and asks me to try it on. I stall for a few moments telling him that I really don't think that I should. I wouldn't feel comfortable. I can't accept gifts etc. His response was that oh well, he'll get someone else to try it on. If the colour doesn't suit he can dye it. etc.
This interaction makes it even more awkward for me to serve him. It's not as if he can just stop buying groceries.
*sighs* Annoying.
Tonight as I was doing research for my short story by listening to Marlo Thomas' Free to be… You and Me on CD, music I used to love when I was uh… 12 and under. At that time I had this music on record (LP) and on cassette tape rather than on CD (I bought the CD for nostalgic reasons more than anything…), I remembered both the flaws to the audio tracks, of which there are many, and how I used to find the message a bit too happy-go-lucky and a bit too obvious… but I also remembered one of my favorite stories from it. It's the story of Atlanta, which can be seen as romantic, a fairy tale, a story of female empowerment etc. but it's also a story of running races. Which at the time made me think of swimming races. But today, it reminded me of my pleasant walk home from school, especially when I pass by the groups of runners along the paths… and how much I enjoy walking out in the bright sunshine — as much as I don't run — or at least I don't run unless I'm doing something like playing a sport at the sports and games nights or soccer with The Kicked or something. Today was a great day!