The Nowhere Monologues #Four

Who Throws Soup?

MONOLOGUE 4

This one might be more than a person is willing to believe. But I assure you, I have video. Poor little Diddy didn’t count on the power of video, now did he? Fair warning, you are always being filmed. You just are. It is what it is, and in some ways, it’s a good thing. Cameras help to solve crimes, they remind you how terrible you look at the self checkout in Target, and they provide endless fodder for frying idiots on TikTok.

As it turns out, I am so grateful for the presence of video on this night, even though most of the time I find it terribly invasive and far too Orwellian. Yep, I borrowed that massively overused analogy, but damn it if it doesn’t fit.

It’s another Sunday night in Nowhere. There is something about those Sundays. Maybe because it’s God’s day to nap and attend a nice outdoor musical festival. I think God might like Coachella, maybe? I don’t think you’d catch him at a Metal Fest. I could be wrong. Maybe a country music jamboree, but I hope not. That would make my relationship with God even more challenging.

Okay, Sunday night. It’s later, close to closing. I am not the sole MOD tonight. Penelope is with me. She is a newer MOD. Penelope is scrappy as fuck. And I love that about her. In her 30 years on the planet she has probably more wisdom than most people I know. But her popularity has been an uphill battle. It’s not because she’s unlikeable, it’s because this girl has zero poker face. ZERO. And that doesn’t play well with customers at times. Penelope might be saying “okay” in her words, but if she thinks you’re full of shit, her face will let you know in no uncertain terms. It’s a pretty face born from a pretty Latina mother, and probably a good looking dad, but I’ve never seen her dad. This self described “brown girl” is a force to be reckoned with. Staunch in her beliefs, committed to her truth, always ready to throw down in the fight against ignorance, entitlement, and stupidity. Maybe the opposite of robotic customer service bimbos that flash a cheerleader smile and smarmily ingratiate themselves into promotions. Penelope got promoted because she fucking deserved it, poker face notwithstanding.

We trade duties on Sundays, sometimes I am in the office preparing closing reports while she takes the floor and vice versa. This July Sunday, Penelope is in the office when I am made aware that there is a challenging customer at the smoothie bar. Early reporting from the ladies in that department is that this woman was inappropriate. In shorthand, she was a combination of smiles and f bombs. Oh, to name her…Let’s call her the Angel of Angry, or Angry for short. By the time I am brought into the situation, Angry is seated at a communal table feasting on whatever she purchased.

Let’s be totally clear here. In our establishment, one can pay for grocery items in normal checkouts. If one is buying prepared food and smoothies, they can pay at the smoothie bar. This is important later, so hang onto that nugget for a moment. So at the smoothie bar, Angry purchases a combo plate, a smoothie, and a juice that comes in our signature 16 oz glass bottles with a $2.00 dollar deposit on the bottles. Once the juice is consumed, the bottle deposit can be refunded.

Angry seems to be harmless as she eats. I just keep a side eye on her based on the intel from the gals who made her smoothie. To be absolutely fair, most retail employees are hyper sensitive to assholes. Even a teeny comment can make a customer extremely unpopular with the staff. This is true because verbal abuse is very common within the retail industry.

Sidebar:

I invite you to be introspective for a moment. Dive deep, soul search, look back. Most of us have taken frustration out on a blue collar worker, a checkout person, a telemarketer, a mechanic, a bank teller, you name it. Quite certain that most of us have lost our shit to someone who had nothing to do with the actual reason we are upset. If you have ever uttered the words “ I need to speak to a manager” you are probably guilty. Now that you have quietly admitted this to yourself, please move on and try to steer clear of phrases like “I never complain, but…” or “I expect more from a place that…” or “this is totally unacceptable” or my favorite “do you know how much money I spend here?”. Love that one. Yep, you alone keep the business afloat and therefore we should honor your patronage with humility, subservience, a tiny amount of awe, and maybe a parade in your honor.

And back to Angry:

I allow for the possibility that my staff is war weary from a day of chaos. Benefit of the doubt: I think maybe the staff is just over it for the day, so I tread lightly, with care. I choose not to approach Angry for her reported bad behavior for this reason and because I am not quite sure about her volatility level. I say this with all due respect, perfectly aware that I might take heat here, but Angry has about 100 or more lbs on me. She’s rock solid, and even though I am not a slight person (I’m 5’8”. I weigh 140lbs. Okay, this morning it was 143. But I had my clothes on when I weighed myself. No I was not wearing wet jeans but I like to give myself a few ounces just to keep from dipping back into a rabid eating disorder) I am not sure if I can hold my own should Angry snap. Don’t even tell me I am body shaming. I said nothing indicative of a criticism, she’s just bigger than I am, and I am a Macedonian pussy. The largest people on the planet, us Macedonians, but the swagger of Alexander the Great wasn’t genetically gifted to me. In short…this bitch scares me. Welcome to customer service.

10 minutes to close. Penelope is up front with me. Peter is checking customers through his line on register 3. Penelope is at the base of Peter’s register, ready to bag. I am at the head of register 2, furiously typing closing report notes into my phone, not looking up. But I do notice Angry in Peter’s line. I think, “Oh good, she is leaving. Crisis averted. She is calm.”

I continue to write my report. Moments later, I notice a conversation happening between Angry, Penelope, and Peter, but I don’t have any particular cause for concern. Voices are level.

At this point, Peter begins to scan Angry’s items into his register. He is unaware that she already paid for them and Angry does a poor job communicating that all she wants is her bottle deposit back on the now empty 16 oz. glass jar.

I hear the conversation unfold, slightly. I am still writing a report but this does prick up my ears. Angry grabs a bag and starts to put her items into it while simultaneously uttering something about her money back. Peter is clearly confused and thinks she is trying to just take these items. Peter finally spots the “paid for” stickers on Angry’s combo plate and he tries to right this sinking ship. But it is too late. Angry lashes out at Peter for the mistake. Peter, not being one to suffer blatant verbal abuse, declines the return on the bottle on the basis that she is not being rational. He asks her to leave. Angry is undone.

I still don’t see this as the threat that this is; we have upset customers yell at us on the daily. I think that Peter is well within policy to ask her to leave. And Penelope is saying something to Angry in support of Peter’s stance. I trust my managers and naively think it will dissipate when she just finally leaves. Mea Culpa. There may be no excuse for my dumb ass at this moment.

Out of nowhere..I hear a giant sound that resembles a gunshot. I look up to see that Penelope has backed away from the register. Peter is decidedly upset. He holds an empty glass bottle up and tells Angry to leave with no uncertainty in his voice.

I clue in. Angry threw the bottle at the register, it hit the wood side, just within inches of Penelope, but miraculously, the bottle didn’t break.

So I step in. I approach her with the full force of my 143lb Macedonian being and I use my disproportionately long arms to point towards the door. I insist that she leave immediately. I failed to mention earlier that in addition to being a giant Macedonian, my arms are far from Vitruvian, You know, DaVinci’s Vitruvian man, arms as long as he is tall? My arms are 4 inches longer than I am tall. Whenever I watch myself on video, all I see are flailing freak arms like one of those blow up things outside the car dealership. Which makes my insistent “leave this building now” moment tremendously comical.

Nonetheless, I step into my “leadership suit”. Otherwise known as my walking bitch face. Not to be confused with my resting bitch face (which is a term I absolutely hate but we can discuss that later). As I demand for her to exit stage whichever the fuck way the door is, I walk past her to properly show her the door. As I do, I am pivoting in order to make sure my back isn’t turned for too long…but the pivot provides just enough time for Angry to open absolute fire.

I don’t quite realize what is happening at the moment, but I hear a loud crash. When I finish my lame pirouette, I see broken glass and soup all over the floor just in front of Penelope. Peter has an arm around Penelope. Now, I’m aghast. But I have no clue about the real extent here. As Penelope is my counterpart in management I yell at her to call the cops while I try to muscle the mountain-like woman that is Angry out the door.

I gesture wildly with my gangly arms for her leave. I have a sea of men around me by now, backing me up. But in this weird world of wokeness, they all know that they can only stand in defense. Something in me is yearning for someone to just restrain her because she’s violent and insane. But we can’t. Male or female…we cannot meet a forceful woman with force. It’s this odd grey area. Theoretically, self defense is fine. But she didn’t take physical action at the men, so they find themselves in a truly fucked up place. Had Angry been a man, they would have probably restrained him with nary a backlash to be feared.

Angry body checks me as I chase her out. Our sweet, oddball door guy gets in the way to block her from doing it again.

The cops are called. It’s a whole thing. She’s on drugs, lost her kids. They corner her in the alley. Violent assault comes with a consequence. Or at least it should.

I witness the confrontation in the alley with my breath stuck somewhere in my chest. Watching Angry vacillate between pleading her case and cursing her accusers gives me pause.

Angry is unwell. I can see all of the life trauma seeping out of her as this band of uniforms condescends to her. My empathy for Angry rises up in my quiet self. I know that I cannot possibly be empathetic out loud when this person assaulted someone I care about. I take it in and wish that I could make sense of the moment. Some people are just evil, right? It’s just not that simple.

For a moment I am lost in the idea of villainy.

Iago. The ultimate villain. An A list antagonist. But I never liked when Iago was played with the shallowness of just an evil troll. That Shakespearean masterpiece is always much stronger if Iago has as far to fall as Othello does. Even Iago had his reasons.

As I watch the uniforms finally subdue Angry into the back of the black and white, I tell my gawking staff members to return to work.

I pause in the thickness of the nighttime summer heat. Once again, I think to myself…”this is just a job. A W-2. How did it ever come to this?”