Dear Bitchy French Woman,
I realize that this Easter you came to New York and had one thing on your mind: I need some blindingly white, extra-wide legged sailor pants that are completely inappropriate for my age. Without a care in the world you swaggered into the store where I worked and selected the perfect pair–making sure, of course, that the girl in the fitting room went downstairs to get you a “fresh” pair first.
Anyways, you came up to me and draped the pants over the order form that I was filling out, who cares if I was writing at that moment! You needed to buy pants so you could rush off to shop and eat at all of those other places that aren’t open because it is FUCKING EASTER. Nevertheless, I rang you up normally and mindlessly, which is really the only thing I could do. I began to fold your pants and wrap them up but apparently this wouldn’t do, and you were forced to stop me.
Apparently my folding wasn’t up to snuff. Your standards must be extremely high since you made me refold the pants three, THREE times for you. I don’t know if you knew this but the way that I fold your ugly pants that probably aren’t going to be worn until May (wait: shouldn’t, shouldn’t be worn until May) isn’t going to affect anything. My fold-job is meaningless in the future of these pants getting wrinkly. They will get wrinkled, no matter how crisply I define the crotch and seams.
That really, is beside the point here. You wanted yours pants re-folded. Ok, I get it. Pants. I handed you your bag and perhaps my expression didn’t express the sea of endless love and respect for you that I hold, a sea that stretches for miles and has rainbows cresting over snow-capped mountains in the background. Perhaps my expression was something more like “Wow. This woman made me re-fold her pants three times and now there are twenty people lined up after her. I better pick things up a bit.” There was no love in my expression for you, but there wasn’t any love to begin with. You are a faceless blur of over-mascera’d eyelashes and over-dyed hair that I help probably 50 times a work day. You don’t matter to me. You are just another customer.
So, instead of accepting this as the way of the world you sneer at me: “You can smile you know.”
No bitch, I can’t smile. I spend my time being underpaid at a retail shop where my time is pretty much regulated to saying overused questions to customers (”did you find everything ok?” “how are you doing in there?”) and folding and re-folding clothing. Not only that but I am forced to interact with older women everyday who seem to think that the only reason I was put on this earth was to fetch them sweaters and doorknobs and pretend to be interested in their stories about whatever. A lot of these women are also really big bitches, like yourself. They can’t deal with the fact that they can boss me around physically–which whatever, is my job–they feel the need to control my every emotion because their purchase somehow equates to being God in the eyes of the store they are shopping at.
This isn’t the case for most of retail workers. We have lives and usually other jobs as well but we have to work so much because we need to make rent on our overpriced New York City apartment. We aren’t concerned with you and your opinions. I noticed you are French and I have actually spent some time there and I know how the retail workers there are: they are fucking bitches. So please don’t complain that the girl you were being obnoxious to at that-store-you-bought-white-pants-at didn’t smile during every moment that the two of you shared.
Fuck off,
Retail Robot
