I have no delusions about my station in life. While I might be a wise-crackin', beer-guzzlin', skirt-chasin' rock 'n' roll anti-hero while I'm out in the world, as soon as I punch my time card, I'm essentially nothing more than a geek. Worse still, an underpaid geek. No danger, no sexual mysteriousness, just a brain who's one pocket protector away from inspiring the next Revenge Of The Nerds movie.
At least, that's what I would've said prior to two hours ago. Now, I'm an odd mix of stoked and disappointed that my attempts at portraying the mild-mannered technology guru have not only failed, but failed dismally. What brought about this epiphany, you might ask? Well, it all happened at around forty-five minutes before I was supposed to clock out. I'd just finished helping a couple pick out a decent machine, when all of a sudden I hear my name over the intercom, asking me to make my merry way up to register six for "customer service."
First of all, customer service is usually a euphemism for "placatory acts that would insult a retarded chimp's intelligence." I've got no patience for this bullshit under normal circumstances, but like I said, it was the last stretch of my shift, so I was only mildly irritated that I was going to spend the remainder of the evening cowtowing to some upper-middle class soccer mom whose shoes were probably, in their own native footwear dialect, crying out in agony as they struggled to support her gargantuan ass.
I get up there and, to my surprise, it isn't a soccer mom waiting, nor is it one of the tools that hide their Craftsman logo under their management-issue name badges. It's Laura, probably one of a small handful of people I'd warn ahead of time if I ever got so fed up with my job that I decided to firebomb the place, and an average looking woman, mid-thirties probably, looking absolutely humiliated. As soon as I get close enough to ask what's up, Laura tenses up a bit. "This lady locked her keys in her car, and uh..." She pauses, in retrospect, obviously trying to figure out how to string the next few words together diplomatically. "Do you think you could help her out somehow?"
Now, for those of you who are between-the-lines illiterate, let me translate. My manager was asking me to break into this chick's car. Folks, this is Wal-Mart. The employees aren't exactly from the finer walks of life. There's a few who fake it really well, but for the most part, we've all fucked something up really, really badly at some point in our lives. That's why we work at Wal-Mart. So, to review, out of all the screw-ups working this infernal occupation, the pissed off alcoholics, the toothless, recovering meth addicts, who does management call when they need a service rendered that, ninety-nine percent of the time, is illegal to perform in the first place?
I was offended.
I was appalled.
I was outraged.
...Ah, who am I kiddin'? I was halfway to the car, still laughing my ass off at the whole situation, before it even occurred to me that someone could've had a less than favorable reaction to the assumption that they had the slightest idea how to bust into a car. Unfortunately, the best substitute slim jim I could muster out of what Wal-Mart carries was a bunch gardening wires taped together. While I managed to snake them into the door and nudge the lock a little, they were too flimsy to push it all the way. Then, I notice a guy standing nearby and staring at me. Not missing a beat, I look at him and say "Hey, you wouldn't happen to have any tools, would you?" As luck would have it, he had two things that coupled into fairly decent locksmith implements: a crowbar and a bucket handle.
Five minutes later, a family was on their way home, and my resume was a lot more interesting than it'd been forty-five minutes earlier.
Triple A, eat your heart out!
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