Letters to People I Hate

Dear reticent customer,

I am not a mind reader. When you come up to the counter, hand over a piece of paper with two book titles on it, and say a name, I assume you want me to look up the books and have given me the author’s last name. I assume this based on dozens of other customers who seem to have a daily word limit.

They come in with a title and author written on a scrap of paper, hand it to me, and look at me expectantly. As if I have every book in the store behind the counter. I’m lucky if everything is spelled correctly and the title belongs to that author. These people usually say nothing more than an author name. Wouldn’t want to waste too much of their daily word quota on the woman helping them find a book. While I struggle with their terrible handwriting, they tap their fingers on the counter. No need for them to speak up or answer my questions with more than grunts.

Back to you. I asked if the name you had given me was the author’s last name.

“No.” You said and glared at me, clearly I was an idiot.

“Okay, did you want me to look up these books for you?”

“No.” You said again and glared again. You stared at me. Why do you think I’m a mind reader? Clearly you are not a mind reader or you would see that I have no idea what you want. Why should I have the ability you don’t even have? Of course, I can speak in full sentences which you can’t seem to do. So maybe mind reading isn’t too far from that in your opinion.

You looked down at the paper again and up at me. I asked if you had ordered these books? That got me an angry yes. Victory! I had to ask your last name again which you reluctantly gave to me. Then I got you your books and you grunted and hustled off. If you had used a full sentence, or even a well worded sentence fragment, I would have gladly gotten you the books much more quickly.

Sincerely,

Kelly

Dear boy’s name,

I’m sorry you’re a girl and your parents decided to saddle you with a boy’s name. Sucks to be you. You are in your early twenties and should have come to terms with your uniqueness by now. Plus, more than one of my co-workers thinks your name is cute and better as a girl’s name. So, I really don’t feel bad for you.

I’m not sorry I asked you for your ID, your credit card was unsigned and it’s store policy. Usually people thank me, not signing is their way of saying please check my ID. It would be more helpful if they just wrote that in the signature line, but this isn’t about them. It’s about you.

I am sorry I asked you if the card was yours. You were so reluctant and slow about getting out your license, the question just came out. Usually when a woman with a credit card bearing a man’s name is hesitant to take out her ID, the card belongs to her husband. When that is the case we aren’t supposed to use the card for the sale unless the card holder is present. So I asked if it was yours in case you would have to get out a different card while you were already digging around in your purse. I really was trying to help.

But you took it as an affront.

“Yes,” you snapped, whisking out your ID. “I get asked that all the time.” Then you heaved a sigh and complained about your parents giving you a name commonly reserved for a boy.

“Sometimes I think if I’m indignant enough people won’t ask me for an ID,” you said and looked at me with your eyebrows raised. Good luck with that, I thought as I handed you back your license. Clearly it isn’t working. I had already said I was sorry during the transaction. Being indignant wasn’t going to make me feel bad for your plight. Change your name if you’re tired of the questioning looks. At the very least change the name on your credit cards. I had a customer who had gotten “Prof” put in front of his name on his card. You could easily get one with your first initial instead of your entire first (boy’s) name.

If you keep up the indignation, you’ll have a long life ahead of you. And James doesn’t want you to let other people get to you. He thinks it’s bad for your health.

Sincerely,

Kelly

Dear calendar lady,

You called the store from your home, some 40 minutes away, to see if we had a calendar. A very specific calendar. You said it was a Michigan calendar with tear-a-way pages. I politely informed you that we did not have anymore desk calendars. You asked if I could check on this one. I said that I knew for sure we had sold out of our desk calendars. You asked for my name. At that moment, I knew this conversation was going to take a while. I shouldn’t have answered the phone.

I gave you my name, three times because you kept talking over me, trying to describe your stupid calendar. It had pictures on one side of the sheet and the days of the month on the other. That’s nice, sounds like a calendar. We don’t have it. Then you started using my name in every sentence. I felt like I was talking to my grade school principal. But no matter how often you said my name in that holier than thou tone, no desk calendars were going to appear.

You asked if I would just look it up in the computer. Unfortunately we don’t have listings in our computer for the calendar and other stationery items. I tried to explain this to you. You asked if I would go look at the calendars to see if this particular one was there. I hated doing that when we had dozens of calendar varieties, wandering among the calendars looking for something a customer is describing over the phone is tedious. But when I know we don’t have one? No way am I looking.

I told you we didn’t have desk calendars, we were all sold out and all we had were wall calendars. You told me it could be a wall calendar, it could be hung on a wall. Lots of things can be hung on a wall, lady. It doesn’t make them wall calendars. I asked if the calendar you wanted was about 12 inches square. You said no, it was smaller. Desk calendar sized, perhaps? I didn’t bother asking.

You said, “Kelly, I just want to see if you have this particular calendar in. If you would go look it would save me a trip. I live almost 40 minutes away and I don’t want to drive out there is you don’t have it, Kelly.” We don’t have it! I’m not telling you we have a similar one and I’m not sure if it’s right. I’m saying no, don’t drive here, don’t waste your time. We don’t have what you want.

I think my irritation showed in my tone, because you upped the usage of my name. Thank goodness I had a co-worker there to roll my eyes at or I might have yelled at you. I repeated our ‘wall calendars only’ status and you said okay. End of story? No. After a pause you said, “So are you going to go look?” Fine. I put you on hold and talked to my co-worker while he looked up a book. I tapped my fingers on the counter and estimated exactly how long I should leave you on hold. I thought about reading a magazine article.

A minute later I picked up. Stifling my irritation for a final showdown I said, “We only have academic planners, Twilight wall calendars, and Eckhart Tolle wall calendars.” You said thank you in a huff and hung up. My co-worker grinned. He thought the Eckhart Tolle was a nice touch. I thought hitting you in the face would be a nice touch, but when I have to deal with people I hate over the phone, I’ll take what I can get.

Sincerely,

Kelly

Dear dictionary lady,

You creeped everyone out. I (kind of) understand your desire for the perfect dictionary for your English class. I suppose you wouldn’t want to spend $30 on a subpar book of definitions, but you still need to stay on your side of the counter. I was afraid you were going to climb right on over and shake me until I truly grasped your dictionary requirements. I’m still unsure what you were talking about. You had a hardcover thesaurus already and you wanted a dictionary to go with it. Who uses a full-sized hardcover dictionary during class? You said you had to write and turn in paragraphs in class. “Paragraphs!” you said, getting bug-eyed, “In class!” I pretended to to care.

When you wanted to know which dictionary I used in class and I told you I never used one, you seemed offended. You leaned across the counter to explain how your community college classes are very hard, how you are the only one getting an “A”, how professors from the local state college teach there. Is that why the classes are hard? Because professors from my university teach them? Then why didn’t I need a dictionary?

To tell the truth, I don’t really hate you, but I got the feeling that you hated me. Well, me and every other twenty-something in the world. You told me how the 20 year olds in your English 210 class didn’t even know what commas and semicolons were. You had to teach them, taking time out of your busy, paragraph writing class time. Poor you. They are all so stupid, like all 20 somethings I’m sure, and so very, very lucky to have such a wizened person such as yourself to guide them. I was insulted. The other girl working the info counter with me had never used a dictionary during class either and we could easily read the annoyance and superiority in your face. You clearly knew so much more than we did.

You needed an “expert opinion” to help you choose between the Oxford and the Merriam-Webster dictionaries. I walked to the other side of the store and told the person who shelves the reference section that you were crazy. He had no idea which one was better and thought you were way too intense. One of my co-workers is also an english teacher at a local high school. She said Oxford and I brought her opinion back to you. You were way too happy. Then you left my section of the store and I thought your crazy was over.

I was wrong. You brought your dictionary compulsions to the registers. One of my other co-workers tried to tell you about the OED, attempting to reassure you that the Oxford dictionary was the right choice. You had no idea what she was talking about. She tried to explain how you can use the Oxford English Dictionary at the library to look up every word in the English language. You told her that you didn’t want to shop there because they jack up the prices. She was understandably confused. How do they jack up the prices at the library? Books are free. You just have to bring them back. She didn’t know you wanted a dictionary for class. She just wanted to give you some dictionary info to ease your dictionary fervor.

But she is in her twenties, so she couldn’t possibly know what she was talking about. A 20 volume dictionary, who ever heard of that! Not you, and that was all that mattered. Good luck getting that Associates degree and transferring to the state college for your architecture degree. I bet you develop a hunchback carrying hardcover dictionaries and thesauruses around the 8 square kilometers of campus.

Sincerely,

Kelly

Dear customer shopping around 7:00 this evening,

You may think you are well read but loudly mocking other books/authors to your freakishly tall friend makes you a pretentious ass. You want me to help you find a book about the apocalypse? That’s fine, I’m here to help and have a few suggestions. Don’t look so surprised that multiple other people have asked the very same question. All of them did it with more tact and grace than you could ever possess. You’ve read “The Road”. Who hasn’t? It’s a goddamn movie now. While my coworker is looking for a post-apocalyptic novel for you in scifi, do not quiz me to see if I meet your version of “well read”. I don’t like to be quizzed. Yes, I have read David Foster Wallace. No, that question had nothing to do with the situation at hand. Yes, you are standing too close to me.

Next time you want help finding a book, understand we need help too. “The Apocalypse” is a broad topic. There are books in scifi, horror, general fiction, metaphysics, mystery, etc. Sometimes I will look up books online for nice customers. I do not want to google things for you when you glare at every suggestion I have made so far. Next time come in with a title. We’ll even order it for you. For now, just try googling “personal space”.

Sincerely,

Kelly