The Best Metaphor for Everything

It’s probably not smoking black cigarettes and reading poetry on your lunch break that makes you cool—that makes you a poet.

Some jackass “accidentally” set fire to his car in the parking lot of the WalMart where I work the other night—by playing with his cigarette lighter (he wasn’t even a smoker). The fire damaged two employees’ cars as well. The jackass doesn’t have insurance—of course—and, of course, WalMart won’t be held accountable either.

A guy from Channel 4 News called to find out how bad it really was. He was angry I wouldn’t let him talk to a manager, “Sir, I’m sure you can imagine, they’ve got their hands full at the moment” and he sounded disappointed that by the time he got to me, the fire had already been put out. When I told him it had damaged only employee cars, he hung up on me.

Smiley, who works in the freezer, was standing by the desk drumming his fingers on a DD boxed bra, waiting for me to get off the phone. When I was free he said, “Dear, would you mind getting on the walkie and telling the managers that R. in the dairy case is having a heart attack?”

I made the call and for a minute there was silence—I imagined a terrible dilemma—Sideburn Manager and Young Obama Manager drawing straws over who got to stay and wait for the hazmat team to clean up the toxic exploded car nonsense and who would attend the ailing dairyman. Sideburn Manager lost and went running to meet the gasping R. making his way with Smiley to meet the ambulance at the door.

The ambulance went to the wrong door.

It went to the door where the old folks go to get their four-dollar blood pressure meds instead of the door where the cool kids go to smoke and talk shit—the door where our twenty-two year old dairyman fell to his knees waiting for treatment—the door where Sideburn Manager stood waving his arms above his head and yelling “Wrong door! Wrong door!”

The ambulance went to the wrong door…isn’t that the best metaphor for everything?

R. was either all right, or needed his paycheck more than he needed recovery, because he showed up for work the next day, laughing it off and looking more than a little tired. The hazmat crew did an excellent job in the parking lot—unless you knew better, you’d swear there was no incident at all.

I know better, but at the moment couldn’t care less. My work week has ended and my ears are still ringing. I’ve been dreaming about flailing Sideburn Managers and piles of flaming jaded news reporters. I woke up this morning and noticed I’ve developed a slight limp.

So, for now…

The dairymen have gone.
The phone has stopped for a minute.
Fuck everybody!

-M.

note: I originally wrote this while doing my stint working as the fitting room mistress, lingerie wrangler and switchboard operator at a WalMart in Nashville, TN—a surprisingly inspiring job that me and my limp miss every day.