Relaunched Records
Originally written for an event on "place" and a moment captured in time - the event was cancelled, so I am posting the story here.
Even though it was Tuesday, it was my Friday, and I had a little skip in my step as I walked through the door of Relaunched Records. I waved to Jenny, the high school senior who’d been working part-time at the store for the last couple years. I was only a few years older, in college, but she looked up to me.
As I made my way to the back office I noticed there were a handful of customers in the store, but the shelves were nice and tidy. I loved working overlapping shifts with Jenny, she always tried so hard, and didn’t sit around reading the books, or listening to the records, we were meant to be selling, unlike some of her predecessors.
I was in the back office, counting my drawer, when I heard yelling. I dropped what I was doing and rushed out to the floor.
There was a substantially built middle-aged man towering over Jenny, who had collapsed into herself behind the front counter. He was screaming, and she was crying. Her face was wet with tears, her entire body was trembling, her right fist was clenched, and she was holding a bill in her left hand, offering it to the man, who was making exaggerated gestures about not taking it.
I hurried to the counter and slid between Jenny and the angry man. “What seems to be the problem here?” I used my best customer service voice.
“Your girl is refusing to take my money,” he said several decibels louder than necessary as he lunged forward, snatched the $100 bill from Jenny, and slammed it on the counter, “it’s illegal to deny cash payments!” He jabbed the bill with his finger several times, to accentuate each syllable as he spoke.
“He wants to buy this pin,” Jenny whispered behind me. She opened her fist and I saw she’d been holding one of the Alameda lapel pins we sell for $3.75, including tax. “I don’t have enough in my drawer to make change.”
“You see, she’s refusing to accept my money!” The man was flailing his arms now, trying to make his point to the customers waiting in line behind him. I was doing my best to keep a straight face. If there was one thing I’d learned from my years in customer service, it was that people don’t realize how ridiculous they look when they throw tantrums like two-year-olds.
“I told him he could wait until I had enough change in my drawer to break his $100, and that’s when he started yelling.”
The angry man’s face looked like a tea kettle left on the stove too long as he exploded with rage again, “She’s still refusing, that’s it, I’m calling the police!”
I didn’t acknowledge his tantrum, instead I turned back to Jenny and handed her the key to the office. “It’s okay, I can take it from here. Go in the back, take your break.” She didn’t need to be told twice, in fact, I suspected she could teleport because she’d disappeared so fast.
I faced the man again. He’d pulled out his cell phone and was standing with his finger poised over the screen, as if ready to make good on his threatened phone call. “So, are you going to help me?” He barked.
I sighed, slid the $100 bill across the counter towards him, and dropped the lapel pin back into the display basked with the rest of them, before placing the whole thing under the front counter to keep him from grabbing it and hurling it at me. “You can call the police if you like, sir. I promise you they’ll be on my side. We don’t keep that much cash in the register for our own safety. We’re much less likely to be robbed if we have minimal cash on hand, so it’s store policy not to have more than $50 dollars at a time in our drawer. That means, if you want to break that $100 bill you carry around to make yourself feel like a big shot, you’re going to have to go to a different store.” I smiled pleasantly and waited for his reply, but he just grabbed his $100 bill and stormed out. If this were a movie, the other customers would have started clapping. But it wasn’t a movie, it was just customer service, so they didn’t say anything to me. One by one they paid for their own merchandise, a few offering pinched smiles, before they left.
Once the line was handled, I went in the back to check on Jenny, but all I found was a note thanking me. Her shift was over, I didn’t blame her for leaving, but a glance at the schedule told me she wouldn’t be back for almost a week. At least I hoped she’d be back. She only had a few months left before graduation, and then she’d be gone forever. Just like all the others.