I have no use for her. No use! Do you hear me? I have no use for her!
I was sitting enjoying my evening at work--no one was there--and I was getting ready to thread my machine and a young woman came up to me to say, "How do I do this?" She had her hands in reindeer prance position and made a small circle with them when she said, "this." If she hadn't been looking right at me, I would have sworn that I missed it when she said "like". "How do I do, like, this?"
I knew she wanted to buy fabric but I wanted to make her ask. "How do you do what?" I was so sweet. So sweet!
"Get fabric."
So I laid it out for her. "You pick what you want. You take it to the center table, the cutting table you walked past when you came in. You tell them how much you want. They cut it for you and give you a paper that you bring to the register."
"Okay. Um, do you have, like, scraps?" That time she did say like.
"No." She would have frowned if her face showed any expression at all. Too much eye liner. Way too much. "They have leftover pieces. They're called 'remnants'."
"Are they free?"
"No." What's that about? Do you go to the florist and ask for some flowers that have been snipped off the bigger flowers? And if you do, do you expect them to be free? No, you don't. Do you go to the hardware store and ask if they have any nails laying around? No, you don't. The grocery store to ask about that single banana or that orphaned bunch of grapes? No, you don't.
So let me back up. "Are they free?"
"No. They're half price, I think."
"And where are they?"
"Well, I don't actually work for JoAnn's, but I think they're on the other side of that display in front of you, the one with tapes and bindings." She turned and looked back at me puzzled. "See the zippers? They're on the other side of the zippers, I think. You may have to ask the women who work at JoAnn's."
She wandered away. "On the other side of this?"
"Yes, I think so. You may have to ask."
I should have told her that asking was free. Absolutely free. As well as advice. And a kick in the pants.
Posted by dotty at October 26, 2005 08:07 PM