Today, I went to Target today to buy vacuum cleaner bags. Of course it was the worst possible day to shop anywhere...the store was mobbed with people preparing for the hurricane. So as I made my way through the crowds of manic shoppers fighting for the last bottle of Poland Spring, I overheard a fellow shopper (who bore a striking resemblance to the late Tammy Faye Baker) ask one of the red-shirted clerks where she could find sunflower seeds.
"We don't have them," she said.
"Are you sure?," Tammy Faye asked.
"Yes - we don't carry them," the clerk said.
"OK," said Tammy Faye, "you sound very positive about that so I'll take your word for it."
Although I should have minded my own business and continued my personal quest for Type M bags for my Kenmore Magic Blue, I couldn't hold back.
"Excuse me," I said to the clerk, "you used to carry them - as recently as two weeks ago." Then I faced Tammy Faye.
"Do you want them for your pets?," I asked her, "because I think they have some with the bird seed."
"For my kids," she said.
The clerk said, "No - we don't carry them."
"Yes you do!," I said, emphatically.
By then Tammy Faye had moved on - but this lit a fire under me. I was - in a word - pissed. Pissed that whenever I complain about poor service in stores, the response is "well - what do you expect? The people who work there only get minimum wage." Pissed that I was in the store to begin with, when I should have been sunning myself on the South of France or in my imaginery Villa in Tuscany, exchaging trenchant repartee with a group of artists, authors and rulers of small countries. Or something like that. You get the idea.
So I was not about to leave the store till I found the sunflower seeds. And less than three minutes later - I hit pay dirt.
In the snack aisle - next to the Planters' Unsalted Peanuts - I found three different types of sunflower seeds...sunflower seeds in shells...sunflower seeds unshelled and salted...and dry-roasted sunflower seeds (unsalted). Victorious - I grabbed the biggest bag of "in shelled" I could find and made a beeline back to the lazy, bored "I only get minimu wage so I don't care" clerk who had misguided poor Tammy Faye.
"Excuse me," I said, "but you told that other woman who was looking for sunflower seeds that you didn't carry them. What do these look like?"
Of course she had no idea what I was talking about - she was too busy talking to her co-workers about when they would take their respective breaks. But - undaunted - I was on a mission to prove a point.
"You told that other woman that this store doesn't sell sunflower seeds, and I just found several varieties...how do you explain that?" I said staring her down, haughty and righteous.
"Well," she said, "she probably found them."
"How do you know?," I said, "do you even know what they are? Did you check to see if you had them? Do you care? What if YOU were the one who needed the seeds? Would you want someone to treat you that way?"
It wasn't really a question - it was an accusation - so therefore I didn't wait for her response. But then, I knew I had to find Tammy Faye...to be sure that my efforts were not in vain.
Of course, she wasn't easy to locate. In North Jersey, baby girls are given Bedazzlers at birth so there's always a sea of big hair and Cheetah-print spandex on display.
Finally - when I was about to give up - I found her near the automotive supplies.
"Guess what!," I said, "I found sunflower seeds!"
At first she had no idea who I was, but then didn't seem to care. "OH!," she said, "you did! That's great!" I handed her the bag.
"Well, I really wanted the kind without shells," she said.
So I told her where they were and was filled with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.
Then I looked at my watch. It was 12:00 - but not because that was the time - because the battery was dead - and while I was busy playing Sunflower Seed Cop and trying to convince a lazy Target representative that she wasn't doing her job - I had wasted valuable time when I could have been getting the battery replaced. I estimated that the entire episode took up 40 minutes of my life that I'll never get back. And - to add insult to injury - they didn't have the vacuum cleaner bags that I needed.
Although it was tempting to buy a bag of Dipsy Doodles and skulk in my car - I took the high road and left the store with nothing but a few rolls of Brawny paper towels and a copy of a magazine proclaiming that "It's TWINS" for Jennifer Anniston.
"Jeez," I thought, "whose more pathetic - the clerk in Target who doesn't do her job or someone who makes righting the wrongs of Big Box Bargain Store employees a raison d'etre?"
Before I could answer that question - or drive myself crazy contemplating what it all meant - my friend Juliette, a traveling professor of feng shui, called me.
"Your friend Marla is coming to my retreat!," she said, "thanks for telling her about it - you're what I call a wayshower!"
She couldn't have called at a better time.... I was instantly vindicated and elevated from the position of "nosey interloper who goes around offering unsolicited guidance and advice".
My joy was short-lived however... I realized I still didn't have the vacuum cleaner bags I needed. But at least I had the chance to bone up on Jennifer Anniston's life, knowing that somewhere in the Northern NJ suburbs, Tammy Faye's happy brood was eating sunflower seeds in total bliss. If only I had bought the Dipsy Doodles...
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