Friday 17 March 2017

Is time going really slowly, or have you been here forever?

Oh dear God, it’s enough to make anyone lose the will to live: Mr Schadenfreude Socialist has been talking at me for over three hours now.

Three hours!

My brain is numb with boredom. Please somebody make him stop. Sweet Jesus make him stop.

Original photo: cristels, Pixabay


The most persistent and imperceptive of the MAMAAs (Middle Aged Men Always Around) by a country mile, Mr SS rocks up pretty much every day I’m in the shop. I see him looking through the window to check whether it’s me behind the counter that day. So I hide; always unsuccessfully. I don’t even know why I try.

He marches in like he owns the place, grabs a café chair and drags it into the middle of the floor - where it blocks access to half the shop - and settles himself in for the duration.

And when I say duration, I mean it. Once he’s in, he stays. All. Sodding. Day. Meanwhile I die a little inside.

He talks constantly. There’s no point in trying to do any paperwork or accounting, because his endless jabber-jabber drills into my ears the entire time he’s there. And there’s no point attempting to escape into the kitchen or outside to check the stock – he just follows me, endlessly prattling on about politics, Emperor Charlemagne (no I don’t know why either) or his quite frankly tedious sounding sort-of-ex-girlfriend. It drives me insane. And it’s exhausting.

Make no mistake, this is no misguided chat-up attempt (Urgh, sorry, just been sick in my mouth a bit there). It actually has very little to do with me. It’s all about him and his Very Important monologues and pronouncements. A self-important bore loves an audience, and there’s few audiences as guaranteed as a trapped sales assistant who is paid to be nice (Not enough. Oh Lord, not nearly enough).

If only....
Original photo: Unsplash, Pexels


Quite often he’s still there, ranting at me, at closing time when I have to cash up and turn everything off. But that doesn’t stop him. He just follows me around the shop, going on and on and on. And he’s still there as I leave the shop and lock the door behind me. I’m surprised he doesn’t follow me home, talking to the back of my head as I walk along the street.

Oh god, maybe he does, but I’ve just blanked it out through trauma. (Urgh. Need to wash my mouth out again).

…………… Urgh.

Just…………urgh.

……..Yeah, I’m never going to get that thought out of my head now. Way to go, imagination; thanks.

Anyway, back to today’s delightful visit:

After three hours of draining every ounce of soul from my being, Mr SS finally says those wonderful words; “Anyway I must be off.”

Finally! I barely dare to hope as he meanders towards the door.

But something is wrong, he’s moving too slowly. At this pace the risk is too high that something else will occur to him before he even reaches the door and he’ll simply turn around and carry on. Unthinkable.

Go through the door, go through the bloody door…..

But it’s getting worse. He slows to a crawl as he gets near the door.

No! No! Keep moving! Keep moving!

And then stops completely

What?! What on earth are you doing?! The door is right there!

He then turns around and says those fateful words, “Oh, and another thing…..”

Argh!

Twenty minutes later and I’ve abandoned all pretence of interest in favour of banging my head on the counter and pointedly not responding to any part of his conversation. I’m fairly sure even he couldn’t fail to pick up those subtle signs, and sure enough, he heads for the door again.

Almost there, almost free… just a few more steps…..

But bugger me, he stops again.

No!!!!

He’s looking at a necklace hanging by the door, handling it and wondering out loud whether he should buy it for his sort-of-ex-girlfriend. I say nothing.

Don’t buy that! It’s a piece of shit! It’ll break in two minutes! I’ll refuse to sell it to you! You haven’t got anyone to give it to anyway; your boring girlfriend dumped you! Oh why can’t you just bugger off?!

Then, quite suddenly, he turns heel and strides out.

At long bloody last! I’m free! The day is looking up! – And I can now, finally, nip to the loo.

So, there I am, in the smallest room in the smallest shop in the village, enjoying the blessed pleasure of release - and I hear my name being called.

It’s Mr SS (of course it bloody is), and he’s calling to me from outside the toilet door.

He’s come back in and he’s actually calling to me from outside the toilet door.

Now, all our MAMAAs display some degree of insensitivity, clinginess and nuttery, but this is a new level. I can’t even pee in peace. Marvellous.  

Photo: Mysticsartdesign, Pixabay

Obviously I ignore him because even my highly developed customer service skills don’t extend to having a conversation from the confines of the toilet, and when I emerge, he’s gone.

At least until next time.

I’m counting the days….

2 comments:

  1. Haha, you speak to my soul on this one. There were some that actually made interesting points here and there but were those small bits of enlightenment worth the hours a month invested in his narcissism?

    I worked in a specialty shop where we got the folks that were quite a bit eccentric. Many nerdy white Master Samurai's in West Texas, you would never have known. They would pose dramatically, discussing how our $15 swords were low quality, "oh, really? At 15 whole dollars, who woulda guessed?!"

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    1. Haha; they're terrible aren't they? And you know their egos are so fragile that if you told them the truth they'd cry. The job is part retail, part baby-sitting at times!

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