Each issue of Galaxy Brain will contain one chapter of Kathryn McLeod’s fantastic book, ” THAT LOOKS GOOD ON YOU–YOU SHOULD BUY IT! This is the fifth chapter. You can read the other chapters here:

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four

“THAT LOOKS GOOD ON YOU–YOU SHOULD BUY IT!”

By Kathryn McLeod

Chapter Five

Punch This!

“I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it.”

G.K. Chesterton

“Nuttin like some good wood lol.” Rihanna

 

“Katie, Gwen. I’m calling to make sure you checked Workforce because I scheduled you for this afternoon.”

“Check what? Whe-”

“Katie, I post the schedule on Workforce. You have to check it every day in case I make changes. I have a lot of things to keep track of and I can’t be responsible for getting in touch with every sales associate each time there’s a change in the schedule. If you can’t work this afternoon you should have got in touch with me earlier so I assume you’re coming in?”

“Uh, right. Yup. Okay. I’ll be there. And then you can tell me-”

“Great! See you fifteen minutes before two o’clock so you have time to prepare for your shift!”

And so with Steverino cheering me on from the sidelines in his housecoat (as previously noted, his job is in the political satire industry and there’s no money to spare for an office, and Zellers is gone and he needs new pants, so…) I put on my work outfit, and tried not to panic about my $10 thrift shoes being nice to look at while sitting at a desk, but not at all nice to imagine wearing on a sales floor for four hours.

Regrets, I’ve had a few (hundred? thousand? hundred thousand?) and ninety-nine percent of them are footwear related.

I was nervous, but excited, because if this job worked out I’d save on retirement savings I’d been spending to almost cover groceries for two (downmarket hipsters) ever since my EI ran out, and I really hated living off retirement savings more than a decade before I could collect Old Age Security.

I might even have enough savings left over now to save myself a mold/mildew lecture from Mike Holmes by pre-laminating the cardboard box I was planning to downsize to in retirement.

Of course, that was before I decided retirement was just a social construct and I could visualize it away. Try it. You’d be amazed by how stress goes down and the future opens up when you visualize your happy smiling ninety-five year old unretired self at the counter asking the next in line, “Would you like 3-D printed fries with that?”

Or just visualize those giant holes opening up in Siberia’s melting permafrost that threaten to release megatons of methane into the atmosphere making good on the threat, all at once, the day you can’t afford shade-grown, fair-trade organic coffee beans anymore.

When I’m keyed up, as I was after learning I’d been scheduled to work that very day, I lose my appetite. But if I don’t eat, I key up more. So my go to food is a boiled egg, which I chop up and eat with plenty of butter, salt and pepper. Cereal, my go to evening snack when I’m keyed up, is a no go in the morning because within about ten minutes of eating it I break out into a cold sweat and my legs go rubbery. Then I get nauseous, which, because I’m vomit-phobic, makes me over-the-top keyed up and I hyperventilate. But because I was facing four hours on my feet, I ate two boiled eggs with butter, salt and pepper. Then I had an apple, because I visualize an apple de-clogging my innards of boiled egg. Then I had a cucumber, because I visualize all those cucumber seeds scraping away any sticky apple residue as they work their way through my digestive tract.

Re the above paragraph: I had a bit of an eating disorder in my teens that morphed into more of a drinking disorder in my twenties. But when I entered my baby-making thirties I became totally abstemious, making meals in the most laborious way possible, thereby earning back some of the health points lost in my teens and twenties. But then my forties came along and there was sort of a decades mash-up, and I was losing points one day, gaining them back the next. Finally, I skidded into my fifties and here we are. Now I occasionally vape my friend Barb’s medicinal marijuana, which is not strong enough for her because she’s older than me and partied through the ‘70s and ‘80s, and I eat whatever I want when I’m hungry and boiled eggs, apples and cucumbers when I’m not.

Believe it or not, it’s actually getting easier being me, although I’ve had to change eating whatever I want when I’m hungry to NOT eating whatever I want when I’m hungry, because if I eat whatever I want when I’m hungry, it’s a dozen ice cream sandwiches.

And I’m pretty sure I must be lactose intolerant if the resultant… fallout is any indication.

(I should probably point out here on behalf of now deceased Dr. Robert Buckman that visualization is pure unadulterated nonsense, absolutely unsound both scientifically and medically. Optically, too.)

But back to my commute to my first day of work at Chestertons.

This time I had somewhere to focus my eyes in case Carl’s penis was out and about on the bus. Worst Fears by Fay Weldon, which I was re-reading, something I almost never do unless it’s by accident, which happens more often than you’d think, re-reading something by accident. My book club re-read The Summer of My Amazing Luck by Miriam Toews and didn’t even realize it until a new member pointed out at her first – and last – meeting, that the odds of five people having the same feeling of déjà vu seemed a bit high. And the only reason our sixth old-timer didn’t have a feeling of déjà vu was because she hadn’t read The Summer of My Amazing Luck the first time. Or the second. She never read the book.

Which didn’t once stop her from having an opinion about it, but, who among us, etc, etc.

We all read A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews twice, too, so even Dr. Robert Buckman would probably think something seriously voodoo is up with Miriam Toews.

Worst Fears, by the way, is about a blissfully unaware and charmed life living actress who returns home from London, where she was appearing in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, to find out that her newly dead husband, a theatre critic whom she adored, had been betraying her in every way imaginable for years. It’s Fay Weldon so it’s super mean.

Although still not as mean as Alice Munro.

I was re-reading it because I knew I liked it, I just couldn’t remember why anymore, even though I had often referenced it when my kids were up against it. I have no idea how helpful it was, referencing Worst Fears when my kids were up against it, but I was trying to improve on my own mother’s references whenever I was up against it:

“Oh for Christ’s sake, I’m having a martini. Whatever it is, you’re not exactly a widow with four young children. Go dust the baseboards.”

Tree  apple, because I often used having a cup of coffee as the reason why I couldn’t play Candyland, an excruciatingly cooperative game that children love to play because the board is a cornucopia of sweet delights. In fact, I used having a cup of coffee as the reason why I couldn’t play any games except store, because with store I could just sit with a cup of coffee while kids dropped off buttons in exchange for an array of items they’d stacked and priced around me.

But I wasn’t ever going to be a widow with four young children because Andy got a vasectomy after the third and the out-of-control bus I prayed for every day never showed up in the right place at the right time.

Look, I know that sounds terrible, but it was like this. Breaking up with Andy was always the hardest thing I was not doing, and once we had three children and a house together, it didn’t even seem possible. But somebody had to put us out of our misery. Or, at least, somebody had to put me out of mine and I knew from all the traveling he was doing just what that somebody, or rather, something, could be – an out-of-control bus, right place, right time.

And no, I don’t feel guilty for wanting to put Andy out of my misery via an out-of-control bus, right place, right time, because now that I’ve parted us, I don’t need death to do it for me.

Andy can live as long as he likes now and it won’t bother me a bit.

Anyway, this time when I entered Chestertons there was no Esther or Gwen, just a young woman hanging dresses on a rack who sprang out from behind it and shouted into my face, “Hi! Welcome to Chestertons! Is there anything I can help you with today?!”

“I’m Katie! I’m here for my shift!”

“Oh, hey. I’m Ashley, Ashley #2. Sorry, I said that too loud. Gwen gave us our new script today and I’m not used to it. I got it wrong anyway because we’re supposed to ask a question the customer can’t answer no to.”

“So, what brings you into Chestertons today?”

“Well duh, work.”

“No duh, I was asking a question the customer can’t answer no to.”

“Oh wow. That’s a good one. I don’t think it’s the one Gwen told us to ask, though. I’ll ask Esther later. Gwen doesn’t like me because I don’t believe in abortion so I always ask Esther. You’re lucky. You’re just support, so no sales. It’s boring, though. You’re gonna be super bored.”

“It’s okay. I can handle bored. I worked in the government.”

“What did you do in the government?”

“I’d tell you, but you’d get fired for sleeping on the job before I got to the part about coordinating a meeting for senior management to discuss a feasibility study for re-designing section 3a) of the form used for reporting on the approvals process in the development of a regulation.”

“Haha! You’re funny. Do you know about punching in? You do it on the computer but I think Gwen has to set you up first. You have like three minutes on either side of whatever time Gwen’s scheduled you to come in, and sometimes it’s really hard to do it because customers are at both cashes and you can’t interrupt. It’s like we don’t matter at all.”

“Well, like I said, I worked in government. Anyway, nice meeting you, Ashley #2. I’m sure we’ll be working together soon.”

And that was the last I ever saw of Ashley #2.

Esther and Gwen were both at the cash but Gwen disappeared to the back as soon as she saw me, an occurrence I learned to not take personally by the time I quit Chestertons almost two years later.

Um, spoiler alert. Again.

“Hi Katie, Gwen’s gone to the back to get you set up. Or something. You’ll be support for the first while and then if you’re working out we’ll move you to sales. I’m guessing you haven’t downloaded Workfare so you’ll need to do that when you get home if you want to know when you’re working. Of course, you can check this copy of the schedule that we keep by the cash, too. In fact, you should because often the changes made here don’t make it to Workfare.”

“You mean… Workforce?”

“Yes, that’s what I said, Workfare. I don’t do the schedule, Gwen does the schedule. So go to the back and put your purse – oh my goodness, I haven’t seen a purse like that since Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 was top of the charts – in a locker. Our purses are going on sale soon and I suggest you place one aside for purchase but that’s up to you. Oh my grandmother’s galoshes, you’re not seriously planning on wearing those shoes, are you? I suggest a trip to the shoe store tomorrow, if not tonight. You can take a look at the shoes here but we’re not a shoe store, as I keep pointing out to the girls. Always check this copy of the schedule, which I keep right here, before you leave. That way you’ll at least be as up-to-date as the last time you worked. I always call to remind the girls if I see that Gwen’s made a change, but Gwen rarely does. You’re lucky. You’re working with me for your first shift. Those shoes are going to be killing your feet after half an hour. Please tell me that’s not your only outfit for work. You should do the try-on-a-thon soon and layaway any outfits you’d like to purchase to wear at work. It’s not mandatory to buy your work outfits from Chestertons but it’s strongly encouraged. At a minimum your look should reflect the Chestertons brand. And be in season.”

“Actually, my feet hurt already, and no, this is not my only outfit for work, but I didn’t know I was going to be working until Gwen called me at 9:00 a.m.”

Mental note: Go back in time and blow up time wasting Twitter!

“Well if I’d known you hadn’t downloaded Workfare yet I would have called you sooner. As it was I’m the only reason you got a call at all this morning from Gwen. Okay, you’d better hurry. You only have three minutes before you have to punch in, three minutes each side of your shift. Remember, three minutes. And if you don’t punch in on time you can’t punch out and a manager has to do it later.”

“Right. Okay. Three minutes.”

I don’t know why it was three minutes and not five, or even ten, because we were paid right down to the minute anyway, but the only time I ever missed punching in was towards the end of my career when both cash registers were busy and I couldn’t. There’d been many times when both cash registers were busy before then, of course, but I’d always managed to squeeze myself in between sales. It was that one time when I couldn’t that I realized my perfect record of signing in within three minutes had gone completely unheralded.

And I don’t think I ever once punched out within the three minutes. My Workforce timesheet was lousy with exclamation marks encased in yellow caution triangles indicating that I had failed to check out within the three minute window, but no one ever said boo about it. For two years I stole five, ten, fifteen minutes – sometimes even a ½ hour of extra time from Chestertons – adding handfuls of dollars to its wage costs. But I figured since the university girls did the opposite, either getting sent home early or leaving exactly on time, I was just evening the scales a little bit.

Nickel and diming the nickel and dimers as it were.

When I got to the back, I could hear Gwen in her closet/office behind the wall of the hobbit corner talking on the phone, so I banged about a bit to let her know I was there. But instead of decreasing her volume, she increased it, causing me to bang around a bit more.

“No, I’ve hired a math tutor. Because Libby isn’t doing as well as she should be. It’s in the slow cooker. Chicken. Six. I’m leaving now to pick up the car. No, don’t touch anything. Don’t, Jerry. Okay, a salad. But chop the lettuce. No, don’t tear it. I don’t care what Gordon Ramsey says. She almost choked. One inch by one inch. No, I eyeball it. You use the ruler. I’ve got to go. Katie is new and needs her lock. It sounds like she’s banging her head against the wall already. Love you, too. No, Jerry. Just leave it. I’ll deal with it when I get home. Make sure the cat has water. We meet with Libby’s new anxiety counsellor on Saturday. Well I’m not having two basket cases on my hands. Your appointment’s not until next week. Yes, I love you, too. Bye.”

When Gwen came out of her closet/office I was sitting on the lone chair, taking a break from my shoes, and resisting the urge to toss them in the garbage under the hobbit counter.

“Okay, Katie, here’s the lock for your locker. Keep it locked and memorize the combination. I have it but I won’t always be here if you forget it. I’ve entered you into the system so pick a password and sign yourself in – three minutes on either side of your start time. Esther will explain your support role. You’re going to need better shoes but they have to be professional looking, nothing shiny, please. And no perfume, either, it gives me migraines. It’s not very busy today so it’s just you and Esther. Ashley #2 is done, Tj is coming in, and when your shift is over at six, Emily will replace you. I’m leaving now for an appointment.”

“Right. Okay. See you, uh, another time then, I guess.”

“That’s right, Katie. Chances are good that you’ll see me another time, since I work here five, sometimes six, occasionally seven days a week, for a minimum of at least eight hours a shift.”

And with that she was gone.

I locked my purse in my locker and then watched the mini microwave clock until it said exactly 1:57, before going back out to the front to punch in.

“Hey there, I’m ready to punch in.”

“Did Gwen give you your employee number?”

“Uh-“

“Oh for pirate Pete’s sake. You need an employee number to punch in. Never mind. I’ll punch you in later. It’s a slow day but I can’t leave you alone in the front while I go in the back and find your employee number.”

I looked around the store which seemed to have quite a few shoppers in it.

“This is a slow day?”

“Oh yes. It’s dead. Let me show you how to clipboard fold sweaters.”

And so began my job at Chestertons. I clipboard folded sweaters, organized racks of clothes by size and style, dusted glass display cases, stacked shoe boxes, and tidied the “take an extra 70% off” sale area, which was still so far out of my price range that it seemed absurd to me that anyone shopped at Chestertons.

“Katie, don’t waste time tidying the sales area. Your focus should always be at the front where the new inventory is. You should be at the front anyway, only circulating to the back when you’ve been spotted off by another sales associate. That’s unless you’ve been assigned to the back, of course. And I’ve already had to refold all the sweaters. We need them tighter and flatter before the next shipment comes in and we’ll need a lot more room on all the tables.”

“More clothes? Cripes, it hardly seems-”

“Heavens to Betsy’s burgers, Katie, we’re so far down in stock I’m surprised our sales aren’t suffering already. We’ve been lucky to make our daily targets for two weeks now.”

“What about these-”

“Oh those strawberry sweaters aren’t selling well. I don’t know what they were thinking. Apples, maybe, but strawberries are not Christmassy. I don’t like these novelty sweaters anyway. Our customers aren’t going to pay a hundred and fifty odd dollars for a navy sweater without even a speck of wool in it and a great big strawberry on the front. There’s far too much rayon showing up in our sweaters this year. Don’t let on, this is just between you and me. As far as we’re concerned to our customers, strawberries are in this Christmas. But they all want cashmere, they just don’t want to pay for it. And across the street they’ve got cashmere on special all the time now.”

“Holy cr- $239! No wonder-”

“Oh, here’s Tj! Tj? I want you to show Katie how to do the sleeving and how to properly hang the pants, right waist two inches under, left waist flat. And she’s not clipboard folding the sweaters as tightly as we need them to be before the next shipment comes in. I’ll help customers. Your sales goal is marked on the sheet as $1500 today but I’ll knock off $500 while you show Katie the support ropes. Gwen didn’t give her an employee number yet so I’m going to have to get that done, too. She has to be ready to go because I don’t think we can afford to have her doing support for very long. We’re going to need everybody on deck for Black Friday.”

“Black Friday? What’s that?”

“Oh my mother’s muffins – what’s Black Friday?! You’ll have to fill her in Tj. I’ve got work to do. Oh this is going to be quite a learning curve, Katie.”

Exit Esther.

“Seriously, Katie? You don’t-”

“Of course I know what Black Friday is. I just didn’t want Esther to know I knew. I’m afraid she’s over-estimating how good I’m going to be at this job.”

“I doubt it. They’re just desperate.”

“Here’s hopin’.”

“It’s totally gross that you have to work here. Ugh, such bullshit. It’s like we’re paid to lie to people. Makes the future look pretty lame-o for me, too, you working here. My dad’s afraid he’s going to end up bankrupt. ‘Everything’s shit, Tj’, he says now.”

“Truer words.”

“Oh man, it’s getting tricky living with Mohammed without my parents finding out. Drake? Our dog? He was sick, and the vet said he might be diabetic, and I was telling my dad about it on the phone and my dad’s like, ‘Tj, tell Mohammed, don’t be so stupid. Get a second opinion. A vet can tell you anything. What does he know about dogs? Is he a dog? He knows about money. But why does Mohammed even have a dog? Muslims hate dogs.’ And then I hear my mom asking, ‘Why does Tj care so much about Mohammed’s dog? That stupid dog is not her problem. Tell her she needs to find a Sikh boyfriend. A Muslim family will never accept her. Those people are racist.’ So then my dad’s like, ‘She likes the dog, okay? It’s normal. Mohammed’s a big guy. I like him. He’s like my son that I always wanted. I like he has a dog. It makes him not so Muslim.’ And my mom’s still going on about how it’s annoying I care so much about Mohammed’s stupid dog. I’m totally freaking out. It’s like I’m living a double life.”

“So Tj, do you want to hear what old lady me you just met thinks? Calm the Tj waters a bit?”

“Yeah, that’s why I told you, that’s what it’s like in a store. You may as well tell everybody everything because they find out anyway.”

“Okay. Well I think your dad knows, and your mom knows, too. They just don’t want to have to acknowledge it. Not yet. So stay the course with the double life thing. They grew up in a different culture. Really, if you think about it, they’re probably relieved knowing that you live with Mohammed. They’re back in Brampton, you’re here in Ottawa. All on your own.”

“Seriously, Katie? You think they know? My mom would be freaked, though, because she thinks you have to be a virgin or no one will want to marry you. And our community is so gossipy. It’s total sexist bullshit, but she has to live in it.”

“She knows that’s not how it is for you. But it’s always something. Many moons ago my mother was upset when I let my boyfriend move in with me, NOT because she was afraid he wouldn’t marry me, but because she was afraid he would. She wanted better for me and she was right. On the other hand, and this may sound sexist, mothers worry less about daughters when they rope a boyfriend off from the herd and they move in together. It’s when daughters are out hunting for boyfriends that they keep us up nights. Once a daughter’s roped herself one-”

“Yeah, that’s definitely sexist, Katie.”

“Sorry. Second wave feminist.”

“Hey, fourth wave! That’s cool you’re up on feminism!”

“Except I have no idea what third wave feminism-”

“Me neither! But I’m not taking Women’s Studies, I’m taking Economics. Then I’m going to do an MBA so I can save my dad’s next business. He does a lot of shit he probably shouldn’t so I might do tax law, too. Hey, I can show you how to clipboard fold the sweaters super tight. There’s a trick to it Esther doesn’t know about so it’s way quicker, but don’t tell her after I show you. Sometimes if people are hungover they just want to clipboard fold sweaters and Esther and Gwen have to think it takes longer or they’ll bug the shit out of them to hurry up so they can do sales. Lindsay knows the trick. You can trust her with shit like this but not with other shit. You’re a mom so you’ll probably figure her out. She’s totally sketchy. But Gwen’s kind of out of it about people.”

“Well, maybe like all moms she just pretends not to know stuff? Sometimes it’s easier. When my kids were younger and they’d go on the computer, this was when they were coming every weekend to the apartment after their dad and I separated, I’d have to tell them to log out of MSM chat before they went home again. I didn’t want to have to accidentally see stuff and then have to deal with it.”

“Wow. Awesome parenting, Katie. Haha, kidding. That’s weird it was you and not your ex who moved out and got an apartment. It’s usually the dad who gets weekends. Sikh parents just stay together but with separate bedrooms. My mom’s always in hers, reading. She’s super unhappy. My dad’s kind of an idiot. Oh man, I did tons of stuff in high school my parents would have totally freaked out about if they’d known. But when your parents are traditional you get really good at protecting them from real life. So you live a fake one for your parents, a real one for yourself. I actually got a job here just so I could be honest about something. Then my dad’s like, ‘Ladieswear? You mean white gloves and shit?’ He talks like Tony Soprano now. My mom’s in the background, ‘Tell her not to fall for the discount. It’s still not worth it.’”

“My kids’ dad used to talk like Homer Simpson, ‘Get confident, stupid.’ The kids told me after I left he cast me as Sideshow Bob. Or was it Sideshow Mel… Anyway, I know what you mean about the apartment but I was the man in our relationship. And the woman. I was the relationship. For years I only saw the back of Andy’s head while he played video games. Do NOT marry a video game player unless you’re a video game player, too. Oh, and he could make fun of me, but I couldn’t make fun of him or it was like a crime against humanity.”

“My dad’s like that! I made a joke about him once, he was such a suck about it.”

“What was the joke?”

“It was that email scam, that prince in Nigeria, you know, you’ve inherited millions of dollars, just follow these instructions. My dad fell for it, and well, I don’t want to get into it because it’s kind of embarrassing and you’ll think he’s an idiot, which he is, but yeah, later I made a joke about checking his email to see if Prince Harry had left him a pot of gold for his birthday, and it was like I’d cut off his dick and fed it to the dog. Hey! Can you look after Drake next weekend? Please, please, please. Say yes! Pleeeeez!”

“Uh-”

“Pleeeeez!”

“Okay. Sure. What the hell. He’s just a diabetic dog.”

“No, Katie. We got a second opinion. It’s a urinary tract infection. So all you have to do is give him lots of water and take him outside to pee.”

“Oh, well, we have a little backyard. It’s fenced in. I can just let him out-”

“He won’t go unless you go with him.”

“Okay. We’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.”

“We’ll drop him off on our way out of town. We’re going to Brampton for the weekend and Mohammed’s parents don’t know about Drake. Or me. He’s a real sweetie. Do you have a dog he can play with while he visits?”

“Yes, actually. Our dog, Bernie.”

“Oh wow. Bernie will have so much fun. Drake loves to play. We’ll bring all his stuff.”

So yes, I’m going to end this chapter with a bit of advice: If a university girl named Tj asks you to look after her boyfriend Mohammed’s dog, Drake, I suggest you change your name and leave the country. She’s very tenacious and Drake is a great big slobbering idiot who pees first, then wants you to go outside and stand in the backyard with him while your dog sulks in his crate because another dog is slobbering and peeing all over his house.

Oh, and one other bit of advice: If you’re a middle-aged mom thinking of getting a part-time minimum wage job selling ladieswear at the mall, feet take longer to recover from a four hour sales shift in $10 thrift shop shoes than you’d ever imagine possible. So advance yourself several shifts’ pay and buy a brand new pair of as-stylish-as-possible clodhoppers with one of those no-nonsense European sounding names – something with an umlaut in it.

Oh, and it’s not advice per se but if any of you moms reading this find yourself missing your grown daughters who have moved away, and you’re pining for that unique and special bond we moms believe we had and always will have with our beautiful and gifted daughters, absolutely do get a part-time minimum wage job selling ladieswear at the mall. Because my takeaway from Chestertons (aside from retail being a scam of epic proportions) is that young women are completely interchangeable, especially when it comes to what they think about us, their moms, which is that we’re 1) totally irrelevant to their lives, 2) completely out of the loop, and 3) not as totally irrelevant to their lives and completely out of the loop as their dads.