8.8.2010

Dear Rachel Dratch,

I've worked in retail sales for what seems like forever. What started out as a summer job during my first year of grad school has quickly become my job forreals. That first summer I made all kinds of no money, but I had some pretty sweet clothes. Then I lost some weight. I'm not sure how much but enough to go down two or three sizes. So then I had all of this shit that didn't fit me or anyone else I knew because no one else was shaped like a baby dumpling.

What I learned that first summer and, let's be honest, the next summer when I moved back to North Carolina and found myself only working a shift here or there, was that I did not need everything. I didn't need fourteen pairs of chinos that only vary by their shade of brown. I did not need more shirts with small to medium sized checks or stripes of blue. And I did not, ever, need anymore straight or bootcut jeans. Those are for people taller than me, and I once tripped on the seam of my bootcut jeans when chasing my dog in the street. That ended with me busted up for a little while because the jeans were too big and had too much fabric going on, causing me to eat the pavement.

Over the past year or so I've become really good at what I do. I don't sell you clothes because, "Oh my god you look so cute right now!" I sell clothes because I like helping people look good. That sounds real cheeseball, I know. But it's true. There are all kinds of people out there who are lost and blind and they need my amazing grace to help them get their clothing game up. And I do it, and they feel good.

Through all of this, as I play therapist and frat brother (i.e., the friend you pay to hang out with...which reminds me--there have been too many times where people just want to be my friend. I am on the job, and you need to buy these pants to help make me feel better about spending the last hour listening to you. This probably contradicts what I just said in the last part, but on the real, there are sometimes people who waste my time by trying on all kinds of stuff, letting me put together outfits for them, and then they decide they just want to hang out when I get off work. And ladies, cause it's only ever ladies, that ain't right! Anyway...), I have found myself sometimes saying whatever is the first thing that pops into my mind that seems to make sense and will hopefully help this person make a decision about buying some clothes.

This summer, I told this girl that she looked so sun-kissed. I have no idea why I chose that particular phrase, but all I could think about was about Jerseylicious-tan she was, and that she needed some good colors to help her tone that down. So I told her she looked sun-kissed. And she was totally into it. I have no idea if she bought anything, but it is one of the times where I remember thinking, "WTF did I just say!?"

So we get to today. I have been a little loopy the past few days. I'm working on the tail end of six or seven days straight. Sometimes toward the end I get a little silly and sometimes a little nonsensical.

I see this tall, Nordic man sitting next to this table about to rip into some Mrs. Fields' cookies. I love, love, love cookies and I've been on the Special-K diet so I was probably also thinking irrationally. I blurt out, in almost full Cookie Monster/Yoda voice, "It's COOKIE TIME!"

I said this to a man I didn't know and had never seen before.

It's cookie time. I said that in a weird character voice to a stranger.

I don't think he or the woman he was with bought anything. And then we kept making eye contact every time I would shuffle out of the fitting room, arms full of recently discarded "no's". That happened two or three times. I eventually just sat in the back and told my managers this insane story as a means of killing time to avoid the Nordic cookie god until he left.

This has to be the number one weirdest thing I have said anyone, even people I know. Oh, that is not really true. The other night I was over a house of some friend's. They just moved in together and they have a couple of awesome roommates. One of these roommates was bringing over this girl who I once met at a birthday party. Of my own. But she didn't remember me.

In trying to deal with that, I got all jumbled in my head. She went to shake my hand and introduce her self and I said, "How." Like the Indian stereotype. I meant to say, "How are you!?" But instead I just made myself look like a racist.

I'm not sure where all of this leaves me. Other than that maybe I need to take a long nap. And maybe also stop talking to strangers or strangers who don't remember me.

Stranger danger!

Jon