Daydreams.

Must it only be a daydream??? If you hate your job in Customer Service, come on over here.

 

Staring blankly at the worn silver counter, I fail to notice the shuffling footsteps and heavy breathing emanating  from the other side of that hypnotically shiny surface before me. This heavy breathing escalates as the customer it belongs to becomes frustrated with all this blank staring I’m doing, the noise now accompanied by gurgles of phlegm and other materials floating around inside her fatty throat. She’s tapping her long red nails now, quite feverishly on the smooth metal of the counter, waking me from my blissfully blank day dream. Raising my eyes to meet hers, she huffs and puffs, her loose skin shaking with every movement.

                I force a smile to creep across my face, secretly wanting to poke at those hound dog jowls and watch the drool drip down her chins. This thought makes me laugh, but I push it back into the recesses of my brain, as with all other feelings of honesty that occur during those critical opportunities to give optimal customer service.

                “Hi, how are you to--” I begin in my robotic customer-friendly inflection.

                Her droopy jowls tremble as her big mouth opens before I can finish. “Two packs of Marlboro reeelights in a box.” She stares at me like I’m a child who just wasn’t worth the nine months.

                I meet her gaze and I can feel my left eyebrow rise in question as if in unstoppable slow motion. Reeelights? Is this some new flavor I haven’t heard of? Can they actually reeelight themselves? That would be amazing! I start thinking thoughts on top of thoughts, one crazier than the last. Maybe she meant Reds… or maybe she meant Lights? Well she did say the whole word, “Lights.” Yes, I think she meant Lights.

                Reaching up just above my head, I grab the boxes and lay them flat in front of her for her eyes of meticulous observation to, well… observe. I can’t help but notice the gold and white colors of the box design, which are very hypnotic against the silver counter. My eyes cross as the colors merge, but her tapping red nails ruin my pretty image once more.

                She coughs in disappointment. My face darts up at once to catch her eyes roll in disgust.

                Now I’m certain that I really wasn’t worth those long nine months.

                “I said Reds,” she scoffs, a long sigh struggling past her pressured air passage. She pulls down her shirt to keep it from showing off her hanging stomach, her pants sagging just below the belly bulge.

                “I’m sorry, I thought you said Lights,” I reply in a chipper voice, the urge to poke that floppy jowl almost overcoming me.

                “Well I didn’t,” she snaps, mucus bubbling with every word. “Maybe you should get a hearing aid.”

                She makes her way to the door, Reds in hand, heart beating against her ribs with every step. I watch her make her way into the parking lot, her juicy breathing becoming heavier and more labored.

                Suddenly, she drops the Reds from her hand and clasps her chest, her breathing coming to a halt. Her eyes bulge and she collapses onto the rough pavement, her hands trapped under her rippling body weight.

                I grab the phone and press the nine and the one twice after that. I tell the operator in my customer-friendly tone that a woman has fallen in my parking lot and isn’t moving.

                They are coming to get her, I figure.

                I walk outside and observe with my meticulous eyes her face, frozen in surprise. Her loose skin hanging softly against those huge eyes, so meaty and tender.

                Her jowls, wet with drool, sag down toward her thick neck.

                I poke them for fun, and stare off into the distance, the colors all running together.

                The red and blue flashing lights make my eyes cross, sending me into my blissfully blank dream all over again.

Reviews

[Shaun Hardy]

Oh my oh my...

I could so go on with this right now. There are so many different points of conversation this brings up at this very moment but I will just stick with one (I'm tired, I just ran for over an hour at the gym and plus I stink right now too).

You write about a point with how people treat others, just because of the job they have. I just ran into this tonight actually. Why is it that people feel it's necessary to belittle or look down on those who might not have the $100k a year type of jobs? Some b*****d tonight was too impatient to wait for the night crew to come and buzz us through the front door at the gym. Instead of waiting for a few extra seconds, he felt it was needed to ring the bell over and over again. When someone did come over and buzz us in, the guy made a point to say "bout time you guys did some work" while they were scanning his membership card. After he walked away and I walked up to the counter to have my card scanned in, I went through my normal routine of saying "g'evening. how are you doing tonight?" I received the same courtesy back too. I added though, "what an impatient jackass that guy before me was." and the person just smiled and nodded his head.

Afterwards, when I saw the same guy on a treadmill, I had so many wonderful thoughts of his shoelace getting caught and ripping his entire foot off, painting the floor with a deep maroon and filling the fitness club with a symphony of screams... Unfortunately, like yourself, I was just day-dreaming. It is crazy though how people can treat others like that though.

I went way off subject and this review will get a big fat "NO, it was not helpful" click probably. Anyways, your story somewhat inspired me to deepen my thoughts for the moment on peoples' actions and judgments.

haha... you said "so meaty and tender", haha