Cal: Retail

The ladder wobbles and I curse the owner for placing the heaviest/most fragile items on the top shelf. I’ve got a line of frowns waiting below and here I am reaching for a Wonder Woman cookie jar- a collector’s item from the 70’s thats been hording disinterest ever since I started working at the comic shop.

"You’ve got a line down here buddy, doesn’t anyone else work here?"

I didn’t bother answering. It would only encourage them to ask more questions. I took my time back down the ladder and no one offered to steady it.

"Here," i said, slamming the box down a little too hard and cringed when I heard something crack.

"Well, I’m not buying it now," the roundish man said and headed for the exit. Two ten year olds were next in line. They laid down a pile of random buttons like loose change, rattling on the counter. I stuffed Wonder Woman under the register and tried to contain this horrible feeling. The feeling that this day was going to be THE ONE.

"How many fellas," I offered, not concerned if they were off a few buttons.

"Ummm," the red-haired freckle face said and looked at his buddy. His friend looked back and I started counting them before they could answer. I gave it my best guess,

"Thirty, okay."

"That’s more than thirty," Travis said, suddenly reappearing from his third break.

"Count them again."

I looked at him to see if he was fucking with me, but that would be granting the man too much personality. Those dead eyes looked back at me with disapproval and that slightly retarded sneer on his face inched up a notch. I started counting and he sighed, leaning back against the counter, almost like he was taking the customer’s side with glaring silence.

"Come on," he said, and I lost count. I closed my eyes for a moment.

"Could you tell me how much this is," a woman said, coming from the side as if this was the exception to waiting in line.

"One second ma’am," I said and started counting again.

"I’ll take that," Travis said and scanned the Spiderman stickers for her. Once, twice, and then several times more because the fuckhead forgot to push the button before he scanned. He hardly ever worked so he never remembered.

"Beep….Beep."

"Push the button Travis," I ordered.

"Which one?" he said.

"I just want to buy a gift certificate for my son," a mother said to the man in front of her.

"Beep, BEEP."

"That button," I said and pushed it for him.

"3.95"

"Oh, that’s too much! I want to get this bracelet too- its got elephants all over it- my daughter LOVES elephants- what is it made of?"

"I’m not sure actually- Cal?"

"Ivory," I said.

"What?"

"Thirty two buttons," I counted. Ringing them up.

"Just put it down for thirty," Travis said and the kid grinned. Some how, despite all of this- I was the asshole.

"What happened to this," Travis asks, raising the broken cookie jar.

"Can I get my gift certificate now?"

"It fell off the top shelf," I said.

"The young man dropped it," gift certificate lady volunteered.

"Is that true," Travis asked in comical fashion, as if this was the shocker of the year.

"That all for you sir?" I asked, ringing up his comics.

"Yes," he said, with sympathy. It was the most generous thing he could’ve said at that moment. He gave me a look like, "Good luck" and quietly departed. Gift certificate lady was up to bat and Travis was still waiting for his answer.

"Your face is turning red," the woman said and I know it WASN’T turning red, but everyone knows its a dirty fucking trick to make someone blush and at that moment the sun bowed down before my face. I looked down so my hair would hang in front of my face while I completed the transaction.

"You’re going to have to pay for this," Travis sighed, like it hurt him to announce this in front of a customer. The woman laughed, because she made my face turn red.

My hand was trembling and I dropped a roll of quarters on the floor.

"Huh!" Travis said in amusement and I bent down to retrieve them, heating up more. It was hard picking up quarters when they were flat on the floor.

"He’s new," Travis explained.

"I can tell" his new buddy answered.

I could melt into the floor or come back and deal with this nightmare. I could tie Travis’s shoelaces together and the man would fall face first into the glass display. I could come back up and mace gift certificate lady with cleaning fluid. I could scream at the top of my lungs until everyone left the store and the men with the giant nets captured and carried me out.

But that’s not what happened.

I came up with the quarters and with a straight face gave the woman a gift certificate, even though I honestly couldn’t remember if she paid. Her stupid face smiled at me .

"Could I get a receipt," she asked and I printed an extra one, handing it over with quivering hands, though my face was returning to a normal color.

"This is for the last transaction," she said and laughed.

"She didn’t even tell you how much she wanted Cal!" Travis laughed with her. "You don’t just give her a gift certificate!"

"Then why does she want a receipt," I shreiked, almost losing it.

"I was just testing you," she sang and guffawed. Travis was enjoying this. She couldn’t have been more than thirty and probably treated her boyfriend like shit- I could imagine the type.

"How much DO you want ma’am," Travis said, accepting the certificate back. They continued the transaction and conversation. I blanked out and stared at the box with the cracked merchandise.

Wonder Woman. What would she do in a situation like this…if she wasn’t cursed to live on a cookie jar.  The side was partially cracked.

"I’ll be weary to shop here when the young ones are behind the counter," she said and shook Travis’s hand.

"Thanks for putting up with us," he said, which surprised me.

She smiled at him and looked through me. I was only air.

Then she turned around and walked out like she had reached the end of the runway and turned her back to the photographers because they weren’t worthy of her sexiness.

Somewhere in the back of my head, Travis’s protest of, "Don’t!" echoed in the hall of logic…but those walls were not installed with reason…the walls were not hostile-proof.

The empty cookie jar came unannounced and smashed over her head like a pumpkin.

She crumbled to the floor with surprising grace, like a bad actress pretending to faint. Travis was making sounds in his throat like an excited giraffe.

NOW it was broken.

I looked at Travis who had his hand to his mouth.

"I’m gonna take a thirty."