Nana Tales
I’ve decided to just title stupid stories from The Banana as Nana Tales. Needless to say there have been many since my last post.
One of my favorite things about working there is that people thing that by slapping a Nana name tag on you’re justified in giving them fashion advice. I don’t know how many times I have been voraciously attacking a pile of disheveled sweaters and some dude will come up to me with a shirt and tie.
“Hey,” they’ll say, “what do you think?”
“Uhhhh…”
Actually I’ve taken to just saying “Yes” anytime anyone asks me a question. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a simple “Yeah” or “Sure!” with a slight shrug. This is a balls to the wall, emphatic “Yes!”
“What do you think with this suit? Brown shoes or Black?”
“Yes!”
“You’re right. I’m getting both!”
At the register I field lots of questions. I also try to make small talk with people. It’s sad. Past examples:
1: “You got that coupon? Wow, that’s great…you’ll save money!”
2: “How bout that weather? Sure is nice!”
3: “I saw that sweater you’re buying and thought… ‘That’s a sweater!’”
It’s sad. I like the people who don’t look at you and don’t talk. Those are my peeps. If anything this job has taught me the true depth of how much I don’t like people – don’t get me wrong, I like people, just not en masse. There is nothing more terrifying than 10 metrosexual men gathered around a pile of cashmere/cotton blend sweaters, especially when I have just folded the stacks and I see manicured hands flinging them everywhere.
“Nooooo! They were BOARD FOLDED! BOARD. FOLDED.”
But aside from wanting to yell, I have also received lots of yelling in my status as a greenhorn idiot. My favorite occasion was when we ran this coupon promotion – but they were reusable all weekend. So this guy used his and then wanted to use it again. So having already thrown it in the drop safe I called a manager.
Some of the managers…like drama. So I went down and got someone and he is all ruffled and kerfuffled.
“WHAT! What do you want??”
“Can you come up to the third floor cashwrap? I made a mistake.”
Emphatic sigh of displeasure. Then swift turn and stomp up the stairs (our store is four floors). As he is running at mach-3 up the stairs he keeps turning to me and yelling:
“Did you check the accordion? Did you check it? The accordion? Did you check the accordion?”
The whole time I was following him and having no idea what he was talking about. The instrument? Why is the accordion important to this whole procedure?
So we get upstairs and he like does this dramatic flourish in front of the customer.
“I am SO sorry, sir.” Then he turns to me. “Get the coupon!”
“It’s in the drop safe.”
Second emphatic sigh of displeasure. He makes a big show of spinning his keys and opening the safe. He digs out the coupon and gives it to the guy.
“I am SO sorry.” He then starts to sprint off and as he goes down the stairs he keeps yelling, “Check the accordion! Check. It.”
Eventually I discovered the accordion was a file folder where we are supposed to put the extra coupons and stuff.
But it didn’t end there. After a while that same manager found it necessary to come back up stairs and give me sass.
“Hey, Tedd. You put any more stuff in the drop safe? You take away someone else’s coupons?”
I think it was a joke but I was over this guy. I just did my little laugh where it is clear I am laughing at you and not with you. This, I think, pissed him off any more, so he just stormed off again.
Whatevs.
Other Updates:
- My acne is out of control. I look worse than I did at 16.
- That class about war and suffering continues to suck. Highlights were when my BFF jumped into the middle of a discussion. It was on sympathy v. empathy in literature. One of the girls in my class said that she thought we had to be careful when using the terms because sympathy is a feeling of distance of pity, while empathy is something deep down that resonance at a deeper personal level. It’s something that can’t be taught. BFF jumps in at this point with her classic: “No.” Which was followed up by. “I taught empathy when I was in India.” I almost completely lost it. Who teaches empathy? Unless, of course, it’s taught within a larger course that covers Love, Hope or Truth…
- At my other job this week we got a new manager for the schedulers. She is awesome, but she also started posting our numbers on this massive whiteboard in the front of us. This week was when I was working on a project where I didn’t schedule people for interviews, so everyone had two numbers posted – the number of calls and their number of interviews. The list read as follows: “John 120/17, Jenny 100/20, Bob 103/18, Tedd 30/0” Wah waaaah. I work half days and the numbers are taken when I’ve only been there for three hours, so it always looks like I’m a total slacker… I actually do suck at that job. I’m slow and I talk too long to people. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to last… Ah well…
- I turned in a story to my other class. I may or may not have referred to Fate as a saucy skank. I was deeply moved when a week after we read it in class everyone chuckled and referenced Fate as a skank. I contribute so much to art.
And to end with… A story about being made fun of by a complete stranger:
The Douche
I went to a bar this weekend with two of my girl friends (note space; Tedd = not a pimp). We were meeting up with one of my buddies who is in law school. While we were there one of my friends started talking to this dude. Whatevs. So my other friend and I go to the back of the bar and visit with my other friend who we came to meet. So eventually my other friend and the Dude come back and start to hang with us. My friend goes to the bathroom and leaves the Dude with us, no biggie. I know awkward, so I try to make him feel comfortable while we’re all waiting for my friend to come back.
I happened to be wearing argyle (Yes, you may judge me.) I had finished a shift at the Nana and gone straight to the bar. Not only was I wearing argyle, but also had on my euro glasses with thick frames so I could see the ND football game on the little TVs at the bar (read: Tedd looked like a douche-nerd). Well, the Dude points at my shirt and goes, “Argyle.” My other friend and I applauded his knowledge of patterns and then the guy looks at me and is like, “I bet you’re a 31 waist.”
At this point I was like…”Uhhh…” But I thought maybe he worked in retail or something so I nicely told him that I was a 32. He disagreed. “Naw, Dude. You’re definitely a 31.” “I’ve always wore a 32,” I said. “No, Dude,” he said, “you’re a 31 for sure.” Seeing that this argument was going nowhere other than for me to pull off my pants and prove to everyone I was a 32, I was like, “Yeah, maybe I should measure again…” (If you know me, you know that I do whatever it takes to avoid confrontation.)
So the guy satisfied that he knew my waist size points to my shirt and is like, “What size shirt you wear?” At this point I kept hoping my friend would come back. I’m all for small talk, but I have never talked about my measurements with anyone but my tailor. So I look at the bathroom door and hope my friend is coming back, but she’s nowhere in sight so I tell the Dude I’m a large.
He didn’t agree with this either.
“Dude,” he started, at which point my friend started back from the bathroom (Tedd let out a sigh of relief). “If you’re a large –” he stopped and looked me up and down. “You don’t work out,” he says.
“Hey!” Ignoring the comment I brought my friend back into the circle. “How was the bathroom?! Number one or number 2? You gonna make out with this guy? ‘Cuz talking to him is super awkward!” That’s the gist of what I said to my friend. But she was drunk and just started talking to my other friend. The Dude did not take his focus off me.
“Dude, if you worked out you could be a large,” he says.
“Okay. I try. I use to work out a lot.”
“What’s a guy like you do at the gym?”
What the eff. “Normal stuff – weights, running.”
“You should focus on push activities. Push-ups, pull-ups, shoulder presses. If you did like 50 push-ups a night you’d be like super-ripped.”
“Awesome,” I said.
“Yeah, just work out your abs and do push-ups. You’ll get super-ripped.”
“Okay.”
“A guy like you should focus on his abs and push-ups.”
Uhhhhnnnnggggg…
At this point my friend busted in.
“Tedd’s a rower,” she says proudly, “he rowed in college.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Cool, but a guy like you should just do push-ups. Focus on abs.”
“Are you like a personal trainer?” I finally asked.
This point was so classic. He lifts up his arm and flexes and says, “You tell me.” He turns to my friend he was hitting on and says, “Feel it and tell me.” I laughed out loud; prior to this I had no idea people like him really existed.
I take this moment to step away from this little circle and go talk to my other buddy who I had come to meet.
Within a few minutes things settled where they should with him macking and my other friend and my buddy and I just talking in the corner. Eventually my friend had to go to the bathroom again and she and the Dude disappeared. At this point I turned to my other two friends and said flatly, “I hate that guy.”
He was right behind me.
Luckily he was drunk enough not to process anything. He just walks right up to me and points at me in the chest. “You know what your problem is?” He asked. I thought this was hilarious so I went along with it.
“No,” I said.
He kind of makes this waving motion in front of my face. “This,” he said, making air circles around my face, “isn’t working for you.”
I laughed and shrugged. “Okay,” I said. “I’m pretty happy with it.” My other friend also got really defensive and jumped in. “Tedd’s awesome,” she said. “People like him a lot.”
The Dude puts up his hands and is like, “Yeah, he’s kind of awesome, but I see his potential. He’s got to,” he waves more circles around me, “he’s got to fix this.”
It’s a good idea at this point to say that this guy was like 5’5” and not built at all. He was wearing a giant black peacoat and had a polo on underneath it. His face also had the beginnings of man scruff which looked like pubes he had glued to his cheeks and upper lip.
So he looks at me and pulls out his cell phone. “What’s your number, Dude? I’m going to help you turn your life around. I’ll text you everything you need to know to fix stuff.” My friends and I just stared at him.
Then my friend came back and I was so adverse to uttering any words to the guy I took off.
Since that time I have focused on push-ups and my abs, my abs and push-ups – sometimes I change it up and do abs, push-ups, abs. I’ve also ordered a polo shirt in a medium and a large black peacoat to wear inside to warm bars. I’m hoping at some point to be able to be superior enough to walk up to another large, awkward guy in a bar and give him life advice – I’ll tell him, while waving air circles around his face that “This isn’t working.”
Addendum:
I actually met this guy again and he was cool. He apologized like 40 times to me. I told him not to worry about it – I have done much stupider stuff while imbibing.
Heck, I don’t even know where the accordion is.
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