It was almost like she thought the louder she got the more likely the fruit shop would stop playing games with her. She knew workers were there at nine O'clock on memorial day. She knew.
"....hello?"
Jeeze, we are not here lady! This is an answering machine!
Her desperate longing for a worker went on for so long that I walked away to finish opening the store for the day. I could hear her droning more "hello?s" as I walked to the back of the store.
Amazing.
I heard her faded voice from the back sounding more and more defeated with each "hello?"
"...I would like to place an order please...hello..? I want someone to talk to me.
well. okay then..."
BEEEEP
"You have no more messages" the automated answering machine told me. The answering machine got the better of her.
I always thought thursdays were stupid customer days...but the winds may be changing.
The day continued with the usual. Kraken told me she won two hundred dollars before work when she scratched her lottery ticket. She also lost twenty more pounds that weekend. It was a long weekend after all.
The phone rang.
Sigh.
"Fruit Shop in Florence! This is Samantha! What can I help you with today?" I still think it is too much to say.
"Yes is this the Fruit Shop?"
See, there is no point for that whole intro.
"Yes ma'am, it is."
"Well I have a question and I don't want you to laugh at me or think it is stupid."
"I definitely will not laugh at you ma'am, and I am sure it is not stupid." I am very reassuring.
"Well I have been hearing around town that you take EBT, is that true."
UMNMMMMNMMMMMMMMMMMM no it is not true, and even if it was I would lie to you and tell you that we didn't because I don't feel that I get only 60% of my check from my minimum wage job so you can get 80$, cute little baskets of fruit on sticks for FREE! I will never assure another customer again that their question is "surely not stupid!"
"No ma'am. We don't accept EBT."
She hung up and didn't even wish me a nice day.
I go to cut pineapple shapes because it is nice it pineapple land.
Doorbell rings. Its the mexican lady who works with me. She doesn't work today though...apparently she looked at the wrong day on the schedule and no one in the shop knows how to tell her to go home. She doesn't have a ride anyway so I take it upon myself to leave so she can have my work. It was very unselfish of me. I had to get to the t shirt shop anyway. They were going to give me summer work!
On the way out of the fruit shop, a woman came in to buy a fruit salad. She caught me before my hand hit the door so I was obligated to help her.
"Are these the only fruit salads you have."
"yes ma'am, right now that is all we have, we will make some after we get more fruit cut but there are two different kinds for you to choose from."
"Is this a strawberry-pineapple fruit salad?"
"Yes ma'am." can you not see the pineapples and strawberries through the clear plastic?
"How do you know?"
How do I know what? How do I know that when I look through the clear plastic bowl I am looking at pineapples and strawberries? How do I know if I can be sure that the pineapples and strawberries that I am looking at are truly pineapples and strawberries?? She was right. How did I know? What is true knowing? Her question was about truth! Her existential insight made me doubt everything I had ever known. And then I realized that it was stupid customer day and she was really struggling, so I cleared up the confusion.
"Because that is what it is."
This seemed to satisfy her because she bought the philosophical bowl of implied strawberries and pineapple. I found out later that she was just a bitch who wanted to passively tell me that I should label my fruit salads so that customers would know what they were getting into.
Maybe the world of t-shirts will be better.
