Wage Slave

I take customer service extremely seriously. Working in used retail for several years has heightened my awareness to truly terrible customer service, but it also gives me compassion for those poor saps who just don’t deserve to be screamed at. I have often been one of those saps, taking it all with a smile, while some strung out junkie or overpaid yuppie vents their rage at being treated unfairly. The best part about working in the trading of used materials (books, music, magazines, hookah pipes) is that everything is subjective and you don’t really have to buy anything from these jackasses. I was always more than happy to negotiate with a rational person, but the minute it turns ugly, I have no remorse in turning everything down, even if the deal contains an item that I would covet myself.
There have been several occasions where I could have just flipped the table over and stormed out on my job, and most of the time it was always bug related. Living in the scorching southwest, it’s not unusual to come across your fair share of roaches and scorpions, but when they are neatly packed in between DVDs and “vintage” books (read: old & smelly), where is the line crossed? The worst such incident didn’t start out too bad. Someone had decided to trade in their prized Hercules and Xena box sets on VHS. These were lovingly placed into a large, clear, plastic tub and set up on the trade counter. I had no idea how much we would sell these for, it was my early days in the Music Department and I was all fresh-faced and eager, so I called another buyer over to school me in the ways of the boxed set. He proceeds to reach into the tub to inspect the product. He takes one tape out of it’s Lucy Lawless encased shrine, and what comes spilling out were roaches, potato bugs and spiders of Temple of Doom proportions. He drops the set back into the tub and slams the lid shut. This ruckus caused the other box sets to stir and very quickly the entire bottom of this tub is filled with bugs and I am gagging in horror. That could have been me! Not wanting to humiliate the customer (Lord knows having to carry out a bucket of bugs would be embarrassing enough) we calmly page the owner of these tapes to the front. What arrives at our counter can only loosely be described as female (the braless breasts unleashed under the homemade tank top confirmed this), covered in tattoos (a few swastikas for good measure), half of her head shaved, half dredlocked, with few to no teeth visible to the naked eye. My co-worker, God bless him, simply stated that we would not be able to take any of her items due to the condition of them (meanwhile, a tornado is forming in this tub, perhaps a West Side Story rumble between roaches and stink bugs, all visible to anyone with eyes). She snorted. She saw the bugs. She grabbed her tub and with a “Fuck you guys” walked out of the store with her flea circus in hand. I was fully pressed against the back wall, trying to shake the imaginary bugs out of my hair, when I got a glimpse at the tattoo that was on her calf: a Diet Coke can and a Pepsi can leaning against each other. Classy.
While insects are certainly traumatizing and most people would have thrown in their apron after something like that, I was far too curious as to what was going to be next. What was to be found in the giant box of porn brought in by a man we only knew as Bedsores, a scaley, Jabba the Hut of a man who would sit in our adult section for so long that a ring would form around him, like a moldy pumpkin that had leaked. Or, when something that can only be describes as a pink, crocheted penis cozy (with a place for one’s balls mind you) is unearthed from a box containing cook books and random knick knacks, do you take it in, do you touch it, do you pretend like it’s not there? If I remember correctly the deal was left unclaimed and, after closing, we chased each other around with the cozy stuck on the end of a pencil. You have to admire that kind of crafting.