As the slow night wanes on, I’m getting better and better at interacting with customers. After all, I’ve had my moment of realization that they’re just like me already by this point.
Still, despite this, there are still people that I cannot seem to interact with. There’s this one guy who goes to my college that comes into the store all the time but, every time he comes in, I’ve never acknowledged the fact that we go to college together. I’ve never talked to him. Someone else always rings him up. He’s just another customer.
On this particular night, he comes into the store to return a movie he rented last week. Like clockwork, I move to the back of the counter to receive the movie from him. However, as I do so, my attention is on one of the promos on the TV monitor. I think it was that “Let’s Save the World” music video that tends to entertain me so much. Because of this, I don’t know that it’s him that’s returning the movie until I look down at the last second, making direct eye contact with him.
Although I cannot remember one specific moment where we’ve talked at my college, I know that he knows who I am just like I know who he is. We have mutual friends and there had to be a time where we were introduced to each other. I’ve probably even sat at the same table as him for a lunch or dinner due to our mutual friends. Still, because we’ve never really acknowledged this recognition before at the Gallery, it feels like we have to remain strangers each time we meet there.
My hand grabs onto the DVD he is returning. Our eyes lock. I manage a smile and say, “Thank you.” He replies the same. Yeah, he knows who I am. And I know who he is. But we cannot acknowledge it. For some reason, it’s just too late for that. He knows it and I know it. It’s strange but it’s just some unwritten rule that we have to subconsciously follow.
I take the DVD and turn back to my workstation. I hear the sound of him exiting the store. Deep down, I hope that he stops coming in when I’m working. I just don’t like dealing with the awkwardness that is abundant while he’s around. It’s not that I don’t like the guy- I barely even know him. But, because of our understood silence, I don’t enjoy our interactions while he’s around.
One thing that I’ve started to notice as I’ve started to study customers more and began to become more social with them is that you can actually tell which customers have had sex before they have come into the store or those that are planning to have sex.
The ones that have had sex usually come into the store arm in arm, still clinging to each other. Their hair is tossed and messy. When they come up to the counter to check out, they keep their words short and sweet. They avoid eye contact. In a way, they know that you know what they’ve been doing. It’s like part of them feels guilty for being seen in public afterwards but the other part of them is excited and feels like an outlaw of sorts for doing so.
Then, there are those who are planning to have sex. They usually aren’t arm in arm but they are definitely touchy feely while in the store. They flirt and touch all around the wall as they look for a movie. I hear them laughing as they do so. Already, I know it’s coming. They get even more aggressive while at the counter in front of me. They’re giggly and bubbly. Each of them knows what’s going to happen in a matter of minutes. Unlike the shy couples that come in after sex, they are outward and overly social. Each of them tries to make their partner embarrassed in front of me and try to get a rise out of them. I’m just now part of their foreplay.
After they leave the store, I wonder how far they make it before they turn to sex. Sometimes I wonder if they even make it out of the parking lot. It’s times like these when I fear for the state of my DVDs that I rent out. I think more about finding that semen strain earlier. I start to scratch my legs. I could have sworn I felt something on them…
When I’m not part of the foreplay for some horny couple, then I’m the punching bag for some asshole trying to impress his girlfriend. We have a two for ten dollars deal with video games in the store. However, if you read the fine print, this deal only applies to the older system games. I’m talking games for the Playstation 2, Gamecube, and the original X-Box. Games for the X-Box 360, Playstation 3, and the Wii do not fall under this category. We have signs for this throughout the store. There’s even one on the outside of the store.
On this particular night, a meathead customer and his little lady come into the store. I don’t like them from the start because they bring food and drink into the store, which you’re not supposed to do (unless you work for the store- after all, you got to eat lunch and dinner sometime). However, I feel like being nice and non-confrontational, so I let it slide. They take forever to get their games. Finally, they reach the counter, coming to my station. After I ring up their two Wii games and new release rental, I begin to try and sell them a Discount Rental Card. After all, I haven’t able to sell one all night. I’m starting to get paranoid and depressed. However, this guy’s balance is right at twenty dollars. Selling him a 23-dollar card for only $19.99 should be easy, after all it’s a deal. I’m saving the guy money.
Then, he asks for the two games for ten dollars deal. I explain to him that that only works for the older system games, as is explained on the signs for the deal throughout the store. By this point, I have given up hope for selling the Discount Rental Card. I can already tell that he’s going to make the rest of the transaction as difficult as possible from the look on his face. Quickly, I offer to take one of the games off his purchase since he was confused about the deal. But no, that’s not good enough. He’s still arguing to me that the deal should work, that the signs are all over the store- even outside. I show him the policy on the sign where it says that it is only applicable to the older system games. That’s still not enough. Only his girlfriend is making logical sentences with me, telling me to go ahead and take one of the games off. I do so and begin to go on through the rest of my transaction.
But no, he’s not done. As the girl pays for it all, he goes throughout the entire store, pointing to each and every sign that has the game deal on it. He points to it and yells back to me, “See! Here’s another one!” I’m not even looking at him. I’m just going through the transaction with a fake smile on my face. After all, we have to uphold a demeanor of calm and pleasantry throughout our transactions, no matter how much of an ass the customer is. When he sees that going through the store isn’t going to affect me, he comes back to my workstation and asks why I put all those signs up if they weren’t true. I tell him that I had nothing to do with putting the signs up. I just work the register. I tell him again that the deal is stated on the signs as just applying to the older systems. It still doesn’t matter. I’m just another target. Just another piece of foreplay. I’m just an object for him to act all masculine and tough against in front of his girlfriend. After all, there’s nothing tougher than trying to put down and humiliate a twenty year old kid behind a counter at a video rental store over a two for ten dollars video game deal that you misread. However, she seems more annoyed than turned on.
Finally, I’m done with the transaction. I go to the back of the counter to hand the guy his game and new release rental. As I begin to hand him the tapes, I look into his face and say what I say to each and every customer, no matter how they treat me: “Have a good night.” He rips the tapes away from my hands harshly and won’t even look in my face. I get no vocal response. They leave.
I think horrible thoughts. I hope he dies in a car crash. Or a house fire.
Then, I just let it all go. I always do. He doesn’t matter. Just an asshole trying to prove how macho he is to his girlfriend.
I really just don’t understand it all. What is wrong with these people? Why am I such a target? How sick do we have to be to have to lessen strangers and embarrass them to make ourselves feel better? How sick do we have to be to make them apart of our foreplay? Good God, I don’t want to be a part of a sex act. I don’t want to be a part of fight. I just want to give them their movies. I don’t know how they do it. I really don’t. I can never see myself treating someone working a counter at a store like this, even before I started working myself. I just don’t understand them. I don’t feel any connection to these people around me. All they get is shitty movies. All they like is crap. They use me to get off. They use me. Someone they’ve never met.
This is all after my realization that they’re just like me. This is after my visualization of them being like little bunny rabbits. I’m contradicting myself again. Nothing is making sense in my head. My stomach is still churning from stuffing down that dinner. My legs still itch. I want to wash my hands but there are no paper towels in the back. It will take forever for my hands to dry. Plus, there’s too much sulfur in that water. It smells awful. It’s just a self-defeating task. I’m not really getting any cleaner, but I have to make my mind think that. My mind is messing everything up. I think about stacking more movies on the wall. Good God, there’s about an hour left and I still haven’t sold a card. I still haven’t sold a card! My metrics are going to be down for the week… already, my job is going to be in jeopardy. Fired from a video store…can you believe that? Well, I’m going to have to. All because of that macho-wannabe asshole. This is all his fault. The horrible thoughts return. Car chase. Fire. Drowning. Anything that’s painful. That piece of shit, I want to kill him. I want to kill him with my bare hands. I want to rip him apart. Rip him apart.
I’m standing back at the register. I don’t know how long I’ve been standing there. My head is down, the blue computer screen filling my vision. The promos are still going on in the background. My co-worker is still narrating her module taking difficulty. Good God, how is she still talking? Suicide. It doesn’t look bad.
“Excuse me, sir?”
I look up. She’s beautiful. Aren’t they all? Blonde hair wrapped back in a ponytail. Blue eyes. The perfect smile.
“Hey…” I find myself saying, “Can I help you with something?”
“Yeah, I was wondering if you had any of the seasons of The Office? I looked but couldn’t find any.”
Deep down, I pray that we do. I check the system. We only have the First Season because we suck. But she’s cool with that. I smile. I go and get it for her. It’s deep down in the gallery section somewhere. Luckily, I find it without much strain and bring it back to her at the counter.
As I start to ring her up, I find myself wanting to make conversation. In fact, I’m dying to make conversation. I can already feel the words on the tip of my tongue. Say them, my mind tells me. Just make friendly conversation. A year ago, I would have jut let it go. But something’s different tonight. I can feel it. Yes, something’s different.
“So… you just now getting into the show?” I ask, a smile on my face.
“Yeah…” she laughs, “My friend showed me some of Season 3 last week. After that, I just knew I had to watch all of it.”
“Yeah, Season 3’s a good one. Personally, Season 2 is my favorite. I like Season 1 a lot too, but it’s pretty short. But yeah, overall, it’s the best show on television, in my opinion.”
“Yeah, I really liked what I saw. I’m looking forward to it.”
It all just feels perfectly normal. There’s no strain. I’m talking just fine. It’s just normal, friendly conversation. I finish the transaction. I hand her the change. As I do so, our hands touch.
I never mean to touch a customer’s hands while giving back change. I usually avoid it as much as possible. This time it is an accident, just like all the others. However, as we touch, a spark of electricity jolts through my arm. Already, I’m starting to remember why I love women so much. I forget about the asexual lifestyle. I forget about the girl I love. I forget about Christa all together.
I move to the back of the counter and hand her the DVD she just rented. Like I do with all my customers, good and bad, I tell her, “Have a good night.” She tells me to do so as well with a smile. The perfect smile.
Her name is Anne. I prefer her to Christa. After all, she just rented a DVD of my favorite television show.
Not all customers are bad. Not all of them are out to hurt you. I’m back to where I was earlier that night. Most of the customers you have are just like you- they’re the little, harmless bunny rabbits. Anne has helped me to see that again. However, there are those that are out to get you. There are those that, no matter what, will make things difficult. These are the wolves. They are few and far in between… but, unfortunately, are more memorable and effective than the rabbits. Because of this, you tend to forget how normal most people really are. I’m sure I’ll forget all of this once I get into a negative transaction again…
The last hour wanes on. Somewhere along the line, I finally sell a Discount Rental Card. The transaction is fairly uneventful. After all the stress leading up to it, you figured there would be something special about it. At least I don’t have to worry about a big fat zero being next to my name the next morning on the Discount Rental Card section of the metrics. At least I don’t have to worry about that.
The last hour is usually uneventful. You usually get last minute customers that come in and get one or two items apiece, screwing up your units per transaction metrics for the entire night. But they don’t know that. I do though. I go through the transactions with a fake smile on my face.
No, nothing ever special happens in this last hour. If it does, it’s usually something negative. In this last hour on this particularly slow but stressful Monday evening, I have a transaction that I’ve been thinking about for days now.
I recognize the girl before she even gets to the counter. She’s with some jock that I don’t recognize. He doesn’t matter. He’s just there. She’s the important one. I recognize her as a girl from the grade below me from high school. She was one of the more popular girls. I would see her in the halls every now and then. I think she was a cheerleader. Yeah, I’m pretty sure she was. Throughout those four years of high school, I never spoke to her or had a conversation with her. We never once interacted.
She comes to the counter to rent some movies out. She had two of them, though I forget the specific titles. Honestly, they don’t matter. I begin to carry out the transaction when a tiny voice inside of me begins to talk. Speak to her, it says. Ask her if she went to your high school. A year ago, I would have never considered it. However, with the way tonight has been going, anything seems possible.
I take the locks out of the movies. I scan them into the computer. I tell her the total.
Do it. Just try for once in your life to do something you would have never tried to do before. It’s not even that big of a task. Do it.
She’s looking down into her purse, getting her money out. My vocal chords seem to be working all on their own.
“Did you go to JA?” I ask her.
She looks up from her purse, the money in her hands. She has a smile on her face and gives a small laugh.
“Yeah, I did… I thought I recognized you. How’s it been going?” she asks.
She recognized me. How about that? She never once says my name. Never once. Whether that’s important or not, I still haven’t decided.
“Good… I’m at Mississippi College right now.” I find myself saying.
The guy isn’t making eye contact with me. He’s looking down. He’s just there, not even remotely important. He’s just an ornament.
“Oh, that’s great. What’s your major?” she asks.
“English. Writing concentration. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet… but I like it…”
“Yeah, I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with my major yet either.”
“Um, where are you these days?”
“Ole Miss.”
“Oh, that’s cool. I have a lot of friends up there right now.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes.”
It all seems so natural. It’s like we’re old friends catching up on missed times. Except, the difference is that I’ve never even spoken to this girl before. She’s never even acknowledged me. I didn’t even know she knew I existed, let alone enough to recognize me behind a counter at her local Movie Gallery. Yet, here we are, talking it up. You’d think we’d shared years together.
“How about your brother? Is he still at JA?” she asks.
She knows I have a brother? God, she must really know who I am. She must really know. She knows I have a brother. How could she know that? I thought we didn’t even exist.
“No…he just graduated. He’s going to State.”
“Oh, well good for him.”
“Yeah.”
I finish the transaction. While doing so, I add that I’m only working here for the summer, just for the extra cash. I tell her about all the free rentals we get. She acts impressed. The guy never enters the conversation. I don’t even think he ever even looked up. I move to the back of the counter with the tapes. I say those magic words. She starts to leave.
“Good to see you, again,” I add, keeping the old friends vibe we’ve had going for the past three minutes.
“You too,” she replies, “Have a good night.”
Then she’s gone.
What the hell just happened?
I go back to the front of the counter, trying to put it all together in my head but I can’t. Even later that night, I’m lying in bed, still thinking about it. How did she know who I was? Did people actually know who I was in high school? Did they know who I was well enough to remember me years later?
When I left high school, I remember thinking that no one, other than a select few from my own class, would remember me. I remember thinking that I left no mark once so ever. I wasn’t very social. I had my own group of friends and we did a lot of stuff but, other than that, I avoided social events and parties like the plague. I couldn’t identify with anyone other than my friends. Then, there were times when I had trouble identifying with them. I was never popular. I was just there. I spent the majority of my free time studying and doing schoolwork. I was barely existing.
I was nothing special. I was uneventful. No one should remember me.
But she did. She even knew that I had a brother. God, how did people really view me at high school? Who am I? What do people think of me? Why does she remember me, of all people? There’s no reason for her to remember me…
I start to feel strange. I start to feel more regret. Maybe… despite all the things that happened to me… maybe… there was a chance for me to have been something… anything, in high school. Maybe people did like me. Maybe I was more than I viewed myself to be. Maybe I just wasted an opportunity, all because of a few assholes trying to put me in my place. Maybe I missed the train.
I break a lock at the front desk. I started to play with it while thinking this over. My co-worker looks over from her modules. We say nothing to each other. I throw it away.
I’m still thinking about this, my old manager, the ants, the asshole customer, Christa, and everything else by the time I’m in the back counting down my drawer. I hate counting down the money at the end of the night. You’re so tired by the time you do it that you are almost guaranteed to miscount the cash at least once. I have to count up my credit card receipts twice after messing up the addition the first time around. The second time it all adds up right.
After my co-worker undergoes a stressful last minute transaction with some unruly customers, she comes into the back to count her own drawer down. As I mentioned earlier, she narrates the entire process. I look at my old manager’s framed certificate on the wall.
It’s around 10:40 p.m. when we leave the store. We finish putting up the deposit, set the alarm, lock the place up, and leave. Outside, it’s still as hot as it was when I left to return my phone call earlier that day. Flies are everywhere. My co-worker and I say our goodbyes and I climb into my truck to drive home.
At my house, I walk bare foot on my carpet. It feels like walking on thousands of pins and needles due to standing up for the past six hours. This is what I get for running off and putting up movies every time a new one comes in the drop box.
After getting on the computer for a few hours, I go upstairs and climb into bed.
The clock says 2:26 a.m.
I don’t remember when I fell asleep that night. But I do remember running through the night in my head over and over again… especially the transaction with the girl from my high school. Over and over again, I ponder the significance of the things she said to me or if they even mean anything at all. I think about it all until my brain hurts. Time flies by. Soon, it’s four in the morning. I’m exhausted. My legs and body ache. Still, I can’t sleep.
Things start to melt together. I’m bending the events of the night with the images of the bed changing as I shift my body’s position, desperately trying to find a spot of comfort. At one point, I have the urge to write it all down. For a brief moment, I consider going downstairs that moment and beginning to do so. No, what till tomorrow, my exhausted mind says. Just wait.
In the last moments of consciousness, I try to search for answers to that last transaction and many of the other troubling or confusing things that happened to me during that night.
I can’t find any answers.
For a brief moment, I feel like scratching my leg.
Hope you all have enjoyed this series of articles.
4 comments:
Excellent! So excellent! I really enjoyed this series. I look forward to discussing this with you tomorrow. But for now, it's late, and I'm exhausted.
Btw, I really like the banner. It really captures the vision of YDKS. An army of YDKS soldiers, commandeered by Jason and Wesley, bent on reforming the world's movie tastes and restoring good movies to their rightfully deserved place. Also, doing away with shit like Witless Protection.
Hey man, Since I am online right now, I just thought I would tell you how awesome this series of articles was. I really enjoyed the read. I may post something tomorrow since I will have the internet for a few hours. Look forward to that!
Glad that you guys seemed to like these so much. It wasn't easy to write it. Good to see that it paid off.
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