Helping a Customer

Helping A Customer

We were sixteen and could finally get our working papers. My best friend and I were thrilled. This meant we would finally have that extra money for the clothes and yes, records that were every teen-agers dream.

You must remember these were the days before television had hit every town. We had not yet been inundated with commercials explaining the necessity for items which would assist in the maintenance of every bodily function. By today's standards we would probably be considered naïve. However, on that first day of work at Edward's Department Store in upstate New York my girlfriend Edie and I felt very sophisticated and worldly.

Edie was appointed to the toy department and I assigned to the stationery. I loved that department as I could decorate the cases with pretty boxes of writing-paper, add a pen and a couple of fake flowers thereby creating an attractive setting for the showcase. Even then pen and paper held a magical fascination for me.

The only drawback to my dream job was that every Saturday afternoon and an hour on each of the two nights a week I worked, I had to relieve the woman at the drug counter for her break time. Her name was Gert. She was a a plump, Irish lady
who demanded definate respect from the younger employees.

One Saturday I went cheerfully over to the drug counter and after her usual instructions, Gert went off to enjoy her break time. Every thing was proceeding in the usual manner when a woman appeared at the counter.

"May I help you?" I asked in my most sophisticated 'women to women' voice.

"Yes." she said. "I would like a traveling douche bag."

My mind frantically raced and with a rather Sherlock Holmes mindset, I tried to figure out what she wanted. .

I had immediately picked up on the words traveling and bag together, dismissing douche as a certain brand. Thusly, I proudly deduced that she obviously wanted to purchase a travel bag.. And where would you go for a travel bag? Well, naturally, the luggage department. So I smiled at the woman, perhaps a bit smugly,
and announced with complete certainty that she should take the elevator to the seventh floor and there she would find 'traveling douche bags' in the luggage department.

."Are you sure?" she ventured timidly.

"Yes madam. I am sure." I smiled this time, certain she was a bit dim witted.

She walked away from the counter looking back over her shoulder but headed toward the 'up' elevators. When Gert returned I told her about the strange woman and after she made a few enquiries and listened to my answers, her face turned slightly red, then a brighter fiery red and finally even a mauve tinge crossed her brow. She literally laughed so hard she shook like a bowl full of jelly.

I noticed that for a few weeks after this incident, the floorwalker and some of the older employees would chuckle as they passed by my counter and greeted me.
However, I was in my glory as for some unknown reason I had been released from my duty of covering Gert's break period.

I went on to spend hours extolling the virtues of this pen or that proper stationery for invitations and decorated the showcase to my hearts content.

I also learned that having a dictionary nearby at all times is a definate plus. And mine is very well used.

Approximately 675 words