A phenomenon to which I am no stranger - a situation gives instance wherein one must look upwards. As I have mentioned, this is no cause to allow the jaw to hang lackadaisically. No, dear friend, keep the lips pursed as though yearning upwards for a kiss... perhaps from a lover leaning over the La-Z-Boy to bid a good night. Should this lover be greeted with an agape oral cavity, said osculating person's libido shall be summarily withered. Upon entering Sam's Club, a crushing majority are floored by the terrifying beauty of floor to ceiling excess. End-caps are terraced as in rice paddies to maximize the number of impulse buys mountained atop one another. As each scooter rounds the corner, it brings with it a fresh fly-catcher. Without bothering to pluck the struggling bugs from their teeth, they putter down the aisles with eyes heavenward. Children scatter, and the elderly are cut down like so many daisies beneath a tractor. One must make way, as the sublime ignores all precedent and demands appreciation.When customers were not completely ignoring me or just asking where things were, they were finding surprising ways to incorrectly answer my question. Perhaps you've been in a place where you've had to utter the same phrase countless times, such as "Paper or plastic?" and "Too boku, no boom boom for soul brother!" Have you then received the same clever retort as many times? Here are the most common responses, in descending order of frequency:
"Do you have any home improvements coming up?"
1. "Huh?"
This may be replaced simply with a blank stare.
2. "Where the tools?"
Try looking over by the mirrors & you might see 'em.
3. "I sure hope not!"
Then I guess you have something to look forward to when you get back from Sam's Club.
4. "How much?"
I have no idea.
5. "Not fer winders!"
That last one requires a bit of explanation. See, there's a window display on the booth, but there are also numerous indicators that Lundberg offers more than just diminutive windows. In addition to the suffix to the name, "Windows and Siding," my booth had signs hanging from the front with all the different offerings. Each sign was printed in a large, red font popular at airport landing strips. What I'm saying here is that failure to recognize that windows were not the sole product could only mean one of two things: 1) Most people don't pay a lick of attention, 2) Sam's Club shoppers are completely illiterate, purchasing only items which they can see through the package or recognize from the logo. I'll let you guess which I'm leaning towards.
Okay, I understand that I'm looking pretty harsh here. Let's take a moment, though, to examine the following construction:
"Not fer winders!"
The closest I can get to deciphering that is... "I'm not in the market, currently, for windows." I suppose it's the preposition that's throwing me off. Much like the phrase "Where my dawgs at?" there is no clear reason to include a preposition... at all. Isn't the purpose of simplifying language to colloquialisms to, you know, shorten stuff? Well I might not have preferred having rednecks yell "NO WINDOWS!" every time I asked a question, but at least it would have made some sense. Now for the real puzzler.
"Not fer gutters!"
As I have said, the window display was the most prominent item on my booth. Clog-free gutters fell third in the list of products, neatly nestled between "ROOFING" and "TRIMMING." How, then, were gutters so frequently picked as whipping boy for my enterprise? Additionally, this negates both the inattention and illiteracy theories I posed earlier, since they must have read the sign in order to come to that conclusion. Allow me to illustrate via Paint:
So... you'll notice there's no vest in that drawing. No vest I tell you. All summer I'd get calls from my "manager" (the one I saw only twice in person) telling me when I'd be working, etc., and giving the weekly vest update. "The vests are coming in Monday." "There was a problem with the vest order, so we should have them by Friday." "Won't things be much better once those vests come in?" But they never did. One of the last conversations I had with the guy was about the vests coming shortly after I'd be returning to Chapel Hill, where I would not be selling windows. Then this:
Frumpy guy: You can just leave the vest in the booth when you leave the last time.
Me: I never got a vest.
FG: You already returned it?
Me: I never got one.
FG: Right, the new ones haven't come in yet.
Me: I never got one of the old ones either.
FG: You're sure?
Me: I'm sure.
See, if I'd had a vest, which was blue (unlike the red Partner vests), I began to figure people wouldn't mistake me for an employee anymore. Then they'd stop asking me where things were! I realize now that was a delusion, but without dreams, what else did I have? And that wasn't the end of the vest saga. My father started getting calls from FG about the vest and even wanted to arrange to pick it up from their house.
Dad: Where's that vest so I can return it to these guys?
Me: I don't have the vest.
Dad: You already returned it?
Me: No I never got one.
Dad: He's telling me he wants to pick it up. You're sure you never got one?
Me: I heard a lot about the vests, but I never had the pleasure of meeting one. You could give him that Food Lion vest. He probably wouldn't notice.
Dad: They want you to pay to replace it if you've lost it.
Me: I will happily give them the cash value of no vest. Which is nothing. No dollars for no vest. You think they'll take a check?
Alright I made that last part up, but they did call him several more times. He also forwarded me a letter about it. I wish I'd had the foresight to keep the letter, but I think I can reproduce it fairly accurately.
[Lundberg letterhead]
Dear XXXXXX,
Please return the vest you were given as a demo representative.
Sincerely,
Frumpy Guy
That's all I have for now. I can feel my life will draining as the mere image assaults my brain. Sexually.
