How's Your Life, Luv?

It’s been a bad couple of weeks. Bad? That’s putting it mildly, it’s been beyond shitty. The Old Bag has been cutting his hours. He’s supposed to be on from noon to nine, but she’s sent him home early three days so far this week. Like, how’s he supposed to pay his bills? His car payments, for example. So all right, he has the money, he isn’t short, but why should he be penalized because they‘re slow? He’s her best man on the floor for the big stuff. She makes no secret about that. Everyone knows it.

What she should be doing is sending half the other staff home, the guys who don’t function the way he does. He’s the store’s hotshot salesman, so what the hell!? And it bugs the hell out of him when she asks in her special way “How’s your love life?” Right after telling him he’d be short another day. That’s her not-so-discreet - as in secret message - letting him know he‘s on for that other evening shift. Then she winks and says see you later, luv! Quietly, so no one else hears. Like it’s a big secret.

It wasn’t so bad at first, once he got over the fact that she wasn’t the counterpart of his fevered nighttime sweats. But given his ideal he wouldn’t be in that situation to begin with. She wasn’t a bag or a hag, but she was old, must be as old as his mother, sure she was. A shared chronological age was all she had in common with his mother, though.

A whole lot better looking than his mother, and really kind of with it, but for Chrissake! Her hair is completely white, a cap of white hair sitting over her smiling face. She’s always smiling, like she’s always pleased as all hell about herself. Maybe he’d be smiling all the time too, if he was the store manager bringing in the big bucks, making decisions, taking credit for everything everyone else does.

When he asked her about the short hours she smiled at him. What the hell! Then she gave him a lesson in fairness; everyone should share the burden of cut hours. Except her, of course; she was immune to the sacrifice she expected of everyone else. In a spirit of fairness.

It was the Olympics, everyone was glued to their friggin’ television screens, watching Canada get hammered. Right; some of the events favoured Canada with enough medals to keep the country from utter desolation on the world sporting scene. Enough of a boost to keep all those everyday sports and at-home boosters from venturing out on Canada’s true everyday sport of shopping. The lack of customers makes for a long, boring and unproductive day, no doubt about it. He was finding himself yawning, forgetting to do things, bored right out of his skull.

And then in comes this old couple he sees from time to time. Interesting how really old geezers think they know something about computers and software. The old girl prissily refers to ‘random access memory’, and the first time he heard her he kind of gawped, wondered what the hell she was talking about until it occurred to him, and he laughed, patted her in a congratulatory manner on the back and recommended she just refer to it as RAM in future; everyone would understand.

He remembered them because they always came shopping with two little dogs in shoulder bags that they stuck in the shopping carts, treating the dogs like they were kids or something. That’s all right, he liked animals, didn’t bother him. Didn’t bother anyone, since other customers always made a beeline for the dogs to chuckle them and it lent a kind of relaxed air to the environment that could only be good for customer relations. That’s what Mrs. Becker always said.

Mrs. Becker; that’s how they were supposed to refer to her. Although when it came to more personal things, outside the shop, they could call her Sheila. Outside the shop Sheila could be anyone’s idea of a prim and proper matron, just as she was generally seen in the shop, as its manager. For her age, really good looking. Which was why, when he was first employed there fresh out of high school graduation, and after a couple of college courses in computer sciences, he was flattered at her attention.

Fact was, he was nothing to look at. Worse than that, he looked kind of peculiar, he knew that. Good reason to avoid looking at himself in mirrors, although he was sometimes taken by surprise when he saw his reflection and his reflex was just as he imagined most other peoples’ was. He was short, stumpy, straight-down, with a really stupid-looking face with a wide, piggy upturned nose. But he could handle himself, anyone wanting to jeer at his looks at school soon found out he could take care of himself.

He had his mother to thanks for his looks. No wonder there was no father-figure as he grew up. Must’ve been a one-night wonder, the guy must’ve been plastered out of his mind, and his mother would never, ever let him broach the subject. He sure tried, over the years, then was forced to resign himself to the understanding he had one parent and one only. Even his grandparents would never stoop to enlighten him, their mouths would tighten, and they’d shut right up. That was a long time ago.

Anyway, that was all history, and it was what was happening right now that bugged the bleeding hell out of him. His night classes had been going all right, he’d get his paperwork eventually. He wouldn’t always be working at the store. Another year or two and he’d shake the dust off the place and move on. He could hardly wait. Until then, he had to plug away. That’s what he usually told himself, anyway. Then he kind of dropped out of that, too.

Oh yeah, that old couple yesterday, looking for another computer. So far they had bought a desk top years ago for her, and over the space of another two years, two desk tops for their daughter. In between they bought computer desks, chairs, all kinds of stuff. Nice to have parents to buy stuff for you, like the stuff they got for their daughter. Who needed them, and couldn’t afford them because as a single mother (!) she had too many expenses, worked too hard, and needed some help. Printers went with the desk tops, and expensive software; Microsoft’s Office Professional. He’d been impressed, nice sales. Right, the old man got a mini-lap-top for himself with a good sound system; to listen to NPR radio, he said; sole use.

Then in the summer they brought their granddaughter in with them to look around at laptops and the kid knew what she wanted, a pricey Toshiba. Without blinking she had it. Yesterday they were back again. This time looking for a laptop for their daughter. Asking about the Office Professional software they’d bought the year previous, wanting to avoid shelling out another $700 for the goods. The three licenses that came with the original one had already been downloaded.

Hell, he hadn’t even known three licenses came with that software. The old girl asked if the daughter could download it a fourth time, and he’d said it was only legal to download it once. When she questioned that he went over to one of the display computers and Googled “Microsoft office professional”, then became acutely aware that the woman was hovering right beside him, intently watching. She saw, just as he did, that the suite came with three licenses, or two, or one, depending on price. He kept trying to position himself, feigning that he wasn’t aware she was there, ogling the screen, but she just moved to the opposite side to continue watching. And what he feared, happened. She spotted the software at discounted prices. She questioned him about that; why their store sold what they wanted for $700 and there were Internet sites selling the same thing for less than half.

“Upgrades”, he shrugged, “that’s all they are, not the full program". But he knew that she hadn’t been convinced by the look on her face.

When they looked at the computers, she wanted specific attributes, and rhymed them off, while her husband stood by, looking vaguely lost. Toshiba because, she said Consumers Report claimed it to be the most reliable, and Intel, not Athlon processors, and nothing under a 500GB hard drive, and oh yes, a 17” screen. Almost forgot; a built-in modem.

“No one has those anymore” he said dismissively, “that’s old technology”.

“Right” she responded, “but our daughter has dial-up service, she lives in the country”.

He felt like snarling at the woman, took a breath, and said, well, have a look at these. ‘These’ were Acer, HP, Gateway, but no dice. Had to be - honestly he heard her say ‘a Toyota’. He picked up at that and felt kind of good as he said to her “hey, you don’t want one of those, they’re on recall”. That got a bit of a laugh out of them, and he figured maybe they would overlook his earlier clumsiness.

He was hoping Sheila wouldn’t ask him how his love life was today. He just wasn’t in the mood. Not that the prospect never excited him; just not now. And he was feeling a little edgy about that woman. Like she was just kind of crowding him. Every time her heard her accented British voice speaking discreetly to one of the others guys he hoped against hope that she would be repeating that mantra: “how’s your love life?” She fancied herself, she had told them once, a Bohemian. Between them, the guys wondered whether there had ever been a Mr. Becker. The other guys, it was no secret; they’d been through her mill themselves. They kind of begged off, one after the other once they were able to convince her they had girlfriends. Either that or find employment somewhere else.

God, he’d been so damn excited when he bought his car last year, a small Mazda. He owed the job that, at the very least. He loved that car, always wanted one, now he had it. But he hadn’t had it six months before Sheila figured she would get herself the 2010 model a couple of steps up from his. And he didn’t know why, but it bugged the hell out of him. Like she was trespassing on his territory. Of all the makes for her decide on, why the same as his? He’d shown it off proudly in the parking lot, felt like he was a spark alight, he felt so light and good and pleased with himself. Now, it seems almost tarnished.

He knew he was being childish about this. Sheila wasn’t so bad, she could be thoughtful sometimes and she did try to be helpful. It was no help to him, though, that everyone was aware he was the only one left of the group to continue servicing her. He’d tried to squirm his way out of it without being too obvious, by letting some of the other guys know that he was getting into a serious relationship with a girl he’d met at night classes. Of course they had no idea he’d given up night classes in favour of home study and a correspondence course, continuing his courses on line.

As far as they were concerned - because he told them so, in generous detail - he had met Francine during classes, and they gradually began to hang out together. It had started with a coffee and doughnuts at Tim Horton’s progressed to an on-campus pub, and they’d then gone out to dinner a few times, and seen one another on the week-ends, as well. Not that things were serious-serious, just kind of nice and slow and comfortable.

Was she a looker, they wanted to know. He was prepared for that, whipped out a photograph he’d taken. Of Francine, of course. Francine, his girlfriend who was a really good looking woman, and smart too, and amazingly, more than happy to be around him. He was sure that at first a few of the guys thought he was hoaxing them, but of course, he kept telling them about different events they’d gone to, at the NAC, GCTC, and of course Scotiabank Place, to see a few Senators’ games, a few live performances.

And then, of course, word leaked out and Sheila became aware of his special relationship. At first she chided him that he’d said nothing to her about it.

“How long?” she’d asked him. “Four months, and you didn’t say a word of it to me? Playing it close to your chest, were you? Did you think I’d mind?”

“No”, he said humbly, “I didn’t think you would be thrilled about it though, given our … um, special relationship.”

“You silly kid. Don’t you think I’d be thrilled for you, after all this time, that you’ve found someone? I am thrilled about it, I think it’s terrific,” she said, the last time they were together at her place.

She asked him how far the relationship had gone. Whether there’d been some intimacy, which, after all, would mark the success or lack of, the relationship as far as she was concerned. Him too, actually. But he said, no, things hadn’t moved that far that fast, yet. She was a quiet one, religious, you know?

She laughed at him. “Religious, is she? You think that translates to no sex? You just haven’t approached her the right way about it. You’ve always been too shy. Case in point, how long it took me to convince you to haul your ass first time around, over here.”

And she gave him generous advice, how he should approach the delicate matter of getting a little more intimate with Francine. She studied Francine’s photograph and said how pretty she was, reminded her of how she looked when she was young .. And then paused as though waiting for him to say something like she’s still good looking - which she is … or that she’s better looking than Francine, anyway. But he didn’t. They were all used to him clamming up anyway, from time to time.

So here he was, in a bind. The Francine story seemed implausible even to him, but they bought it. And now he didn’t know where he could take it. They’d want to meet Francine eventually, arrange some group get-together for one of the holidays, they always did, and he’d always begged off because he was the only one who didn’t have anyone, so he’d had to go along with Sheila, everyone pretending that was OK, like they were a couple or something and that grated on him like he was a fish caught in a net, and he wanted to chew through that netting and escape.

Sure, he could escape. Nothing could stop him from just one day telling them all that would be his last day there. He was resigning his grand position as hot-shot numero uno salesman, and looking elsewhere for employment. There’d be questions but he could handle them. But wow, wouldn’t he miss them all. Come to think of it - and he didn’t often, they were just about the only friends he had. Leave that place and he’d be on his own, without anyone.

Except maybe his mother and the less said about her the better. His life was a balls-up he thought glumly, he’d done a right royal cock-up, to paraphrase Sheila. The anatomy of his discontent, he shrugged. Life's a bugger.