Yesterday, I ended up buying an extra pair of work shoes...unexpected purchase, but never mind the details - there's nothing to see here people. So I'm at a shoe store that's ten, maybe fifteen minutes from where I work. I find exactly the shoes I want and head to the register only to find one very slow moving checkout line.
Right as I'm about to get my turn at the registers, my phone goes off and it's my manager, Brian, calling. My phone is perpetually on vibrate, so I missed his call - but he texts me:
Brian: Can you grab bandaids?
Of course I can. I'm a total team player, so now I start to think about exactly where, between the shoe store and work, I can buy bandaids. My window of time has narrowed down to exactly the amount of minutes I need to pay for my shoes and make it back to work on time - I may have an extra ten minutes or so of padding due to the bandaid request, then again, someone may just be bleeding enough to need 'em. It's not like the following scenario is taking place:
Any of our talented, and hard-working kitchen staff: Damn! Cut my finger! Hey, we're out of bandaids!
Brian: No problem - I'll call Chris and have him pick some up while he's out buying acceptable work shoes. Just keep a kitchen towel wrapped around it until he gets back!
What happens next, not only evaporated all of my extra minutes, but now it's delaying the arrival of band aids - someone at work is bleeding for God's sake!
Checkout Girl: Did you find everything you need today?
Me, thinking: No - I'd actually like to get back out of this painfully slow moving line and look around some more...but screw it, I've got band aids to buy and a job to get to....on time.
Me, speaking: Do you have bandaids?
Checkout Girl: Bandaids???
Me: Never mind, yes.
Checkout Girl: Awesome....looks like you've got a right and a left, both the same size.
Me, thinking: Lucky I'm not planning on wearing 'em to go dancing - in which case, I've been told I have two left feet.
Me, speaking: Great - our work here is done.
Checkout Girl: ...and if I can just have your phone number for your coupon.
Me, thinking: I'm kinda gettin' low on time, and for the love of God, I've got bandaids to buy.
Me, speaking: Blah, blah, blah...blah, blah, blah....blahblahblahblah.
Checkout Girl: Clickity-click, type, type, type - pause.......
At this point, time is an odd combination of the exact number of minutes I need to get back to work, with bandaids, shooting by, and time standing completely still.
Checkout Girl: Have you shopped with us before?
Me: I have not.
Checkout Girl: Ok, well I'll just get your name and address and enter you in our shopper program, only take a second.
This is the exact moment that my mind flashes back to the last time I was in a Radio Shack store - though I have no flippin' idea when that was. Those fuckers! This is all their fault! They started this shit! Hit up a Shack for one stupid little adapter-circuit-electronic-switch-cord-fuse thingy, or, a simple 9 volt battery and they would take down all of your fucking information, including your mother's maiden name and you get Radio Shack catalogs for life, as mandated by congress. Fuckers! And if you move? The catalogs will show up at your new house before you do. Fuckers! As far as I'm concerned, Radio Shack invented junk mail. By the way, it takes much more than a second to sign you up for their shopper program. And yes, F bombs galore - blame those fuckers at the Shack.
Before I pull out of the parking lot, I shoot Brian a text:
Me: Yup - any specific kind?
I stop at Heinen's on my way back to work. No reply from B, so I'm gonna wing it. In a restaurant kitchen, you need every kind of bandaid from the size of your pinky, to a full-on bed sheet sized, in case you lose a man and they have to be carried out on a stretcher and covered because nobody wants to see that - but that hardly ever happens, so I'll just get two boxes of bandaids and get back to work.
As I'm pulling out of the parking lot, my phones goes off with a text alert - it's Brian:
Brian: Dora The Explorer.
Best smartass reply ever - and I know a thing or ten about being a smartass. I laugh, even though I know that back at work, someone is bleeding and this is no time for laughter. Gotta go, time to empty my mailbox of shoe coupons and Radio Shack propaganda.
No comments:
Post a Comment