Jean Man
Jean Man
I am under the belief that the mall is an unhealthy place to endure the necessary act of purchasing merchandise. First off it is indoors. I strongly believe that the ‘mall creator guy’ (that’s his scientific name) realized this flaw and closterphobic-ed proofed it: there are all those skylines and bright lights forging the feeling of sunshine, and all that fresh manufactured polluted indoor air; it’s like being outside, but not, and I always wonder why I’m not. Second off there are the distractions, I go in looking for shirts, and I come out with two ice cone. I go in looking for jeans, and I come out with Thus spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche. It just doesn’t work out.
But besides the obvious, there are over two-hundred clothing’s shops in the mall, but only three that attempt to make jeans my size. Either they are too short at the ends making me look like Steve Urkel’s girlfriends, or it’s so big at the waist that even with belt I look butch. So taking all these things into consideration, it might come as a surprise to state: I don’t like to go to the mall. But I am forced to go to the mall by a mother looking for an excuse, to go herself without feeling guilty when she asks father for money. Now on this peculiar day, I decided to venture shopping with a friend who shares my predicament. It was a ‘choice’: go with friend or mother. I chose friend.
This time I was determined to come out with at least one article of clothing (and only one ice cone). So I went store to store, I can’t even count how many fitting rooms I was in that day, but fitting rooms should be call ‘attempting room’ because with all the clothes I tried on in those fitting room, I attempted but did not fit in any.
Finally I come across a store called Pacsun. My eyes focus on an interesting pair of jeans, folded between pairs of not so interesting jeans. As I attempt to slowly but quickly pull out my soon-to-be property, three not so interesting jeans tumbled to the ground. I did the ‘look’; you know the look, the ‘check to make sure no one but your friend saw what happened’ look. At first, it seem like this problem could be corrected without the assistance of underpaid overworked employees. But I was wrong, one of these underpaid overworked employees happened to approached me with that ‘you are an idiot’ look. Now this man that approached apparently knew my friend so he didn’t just give me the ‘look’ he spoke:
“ God damn it! Crap! Did you have too…man…now…I just…god”
“I’m so sorry, I’m just about to fix it” I state apolitically.
Then he took one of those extremely long unnecessary evil deep breaths and said, “Everyone knows that customers never organize and fold jeans right. There is a certain way it’s done.”
I just stared at him wondering to myself, if there was some special amazing way in which jeans were organized. Because if it was, it was a special amazing waste of fucking time way in which the client never gave a damn about, and is always disrupted within the first ten minutes of the store opening.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated again but not as hearty as before.
“The thing that sucks about this the most,” he growled, “is that I am the jean manger of this store so it’s my responsibility.”
Now I must have stood there for a good five minutes, waiting for him to laugh or signal in some way that he was joking. But no, he was proudly saying he was a Jean manager. Jean manager? See the executives of Pacsun had some sort of ‘meet’ / get-together over golf, and after a few drinks decided on a way to boost employee morale by brand them with humiliating tittles like “jean manager” that celebrate their mediocrity. Now any person with some degree of intelligence/respect-for-themselves would not condescendingly state themselves as 'jean manager' to a customer. But he did.
“So I’m all in charge of this,” he said condescendingly , “being jean manger is just so hard.”
I had tried to be polite, but something in me snapped. It snapped hard, and I just could not take it. I had to stab back.
“Oh you are a jean manager,” I started, “wow that’s a really important job.”
“Yeah,” he said almost basking in the glory of it.
“Wow you must have gone to college for that. I mean what did you graduate with? Summa cum laude?” I smiled sarcastically.
“no” he answered honestly but confused.
“You know with your skills you should host night-classes in which you teach customers 'how to fold jeans right'. I'd bet you would make alot of money.”
“I don't think anyone would want to go to that” he said after putting some thought into it
“Sure they would, if you make it after hours, I think many adults would come. Hey I’ll even come it seems very educational.”
Now in my mind I was just getting started, but my friend looked at me with one of those ‘stop being a bitch now’ looks. So I stopped, and put the jeans back the best way I knew how. And left the store, And the mall with only one ice cone.