We’re going to talk about shopping etiquette.

I’m going to do my best to not turn this into a rant about All of the Jerky People that come into my store, because I don’t need to rant about them, but I will tell you that most of this comes from my own experiences.

Here are things to keep in mind while shopping at a Store That Sells Things.

1. Make an effort to put things back where you found them.

Now, I totally understand why you would hurriedly toss an item that you don’t want as you run out the door onto the closest clothes rack. I do. I promise. I am the type of shopper that carries an item through the entire store, only to decide at the cash register that, Hey, maybe I don’t need to spend money on this. and I leave it somewhere close by.

I do this all the time.

Because of this, as an employee, I’m incredibly zen about this concept. “Eh. I’ll put it back.” It’s my job. If everybody put everything back where it was during the day, I wouldn’t have a job, because the store wouldn’t need someone to put stuff away!

However.

Every single person I have ever shopped with takes me to task for putting items in random places in the store. I’ve had my wrists slapped, and also been glared at by many a friend (and stranger!). Remember this kids, nobody wants to clean up after you. Clean up after yourself!

You can bet your boots (haha) that I put this back where it belonged. Right next to all of the other amazingly bright coloured boots at goodwill!

Along the same lines of “pick up after yourself,”…
2. Hang up your clothes in the dressing room.

Many a day I work in the dressing room, only to have a customer hand me a GIANT PILE OF CLOTHING and apologize, “Oh, I’m so sorry! So sorry!” for handing me a giant pile of clothing and hangers.

Apologies mean nothing if you can fix it. If your baby is screaming and throwing a tantrum and you’re walking out the door? Apologize. If you tripped and fell and knocked a display over? Apologize. If you don’t attempt at all to fix the problem? Don’t apologize. It’s not a band-aid that solves everything.

Hang up your clothes as you try them on! You have the extra 2 minutes it takes to toss them on the hanger! It doesn’t take that long, really! They don’t even have to be straight, or completely buttoned up. Just take a minute, and remember that someone always has to clean stuff up after you.

3. If shopping with friends, be aware of your surroundings.

Trust me on this one. I love shopping with friends. The best trips involve lots of giggling and photographing silly things.

Darn straight we’re hugging a stuffed unicorn!

The problem with shopping with your friends is that it’s easy to forget that you’re not still in the basement where nobody’s around to be irritated by you. It’s easy to walk slowly, be in the way, and just generally too loud.

Try and be aware of your surroundings, even when you’re having fun in the mall, because there are still Nice Old ladies shopping around, and new mothers with sleeping babies, who don’t necessarily need to hear about Your Latest Sexcapade or the Sexy Lingerie You’re Going To Wear Tonight. Have fun, but try not to be too disruptive.

Basically this post comes down to, remember that people work in the store. People who deserve common courtesy.

Tune in next week when we discuss when it’s appropriate to use a potato spork during a first date.

Two years ago, I worked at the city zoo during the holiday season. It was a particularly busy night and I was temporarily in the back room when the phone rang. My supervisor was on the line:

S: ” Brittney? ”

Me: “Yeah.”

S: (hushed voice) “Stay back there.”

Me: “Uh… what?”

S: “What did you do?”

Me: “I’m… tagging the Babirusas…?”

S: “No, I mean, what are you involved in?!”

Me: “What the heck are you talking abou–”

S: “There’s this scary guy in a suit asking for you.”

Me: “Why?”

S: “I don’t know! I told him you don’t work here.”

Me: “You told him I don’t…”

S: “Yeah, I think he’s a cop. So stay back there, I’ll cover for you.”

Me: “What in the hell…”

(my cell phone rings)

My Dad: “Brittney? Don’t you work at the zoo? I thought you worked here! I just got out of a meeting and–”

(This is the part where I die of laughter.)

So, apparently my Dad looks like a G-Man. I’ve always felt like he looked like a banker, or something.

In the end, it got all sorted out. He’s still slightly suspicious that maybe I never worked at the zoo at all, since apparently my supervisor did such a good job feigning ignorance when he asked about me.

Some day I’ll talk about his work, and how I have no idea what it is he does, but I think this is good enough for today.

Happy Father’s day, Dad.

(Oasis playing on the stereo)
K: “You know what I love? I love it when the overhead stereo plays Billy Idol songs after we’re closed. Because then I can DANCE!”

Me: “Yeah, it’s even better when it’s Beyonce, or something totally ridiculous.”

K: “Pretty much anything is better than that one song…”

Me: “Do-do-do-do- do-do…”

K & Me : “Ooooh!”

(we groan in unison)

K: “You know what song I really hate, though? The one that’s all, “duh duh duh duh five hundred miles and duh duh duh five hundred more…”

Me: (mouth falls open)

K: “Like, half of it is in spanish or something, I just don’t get it.”

Me: “…”

K: “…what?”

Me: “A THOUSAND MILES? By The Proclaimers?!”

K: “Uh, yeah, whatever?”

Me: “Have you even seeeeeen Benny & Joon?”

K: “Well if I haven’t heard of it, it probably sucks.”

Me: (unintelligable screeching)

(Another salesgirl walks up)

Me: “You know, the Thousand miles song? Do you like it?”

N: “By the Proclaimers? It’s my favourite! But… (looks around) I’m a crazy fangirl for Johnny Depp in Benny & Joon.”

K: “What. The. Hell.”

Me: “So… you’re coming over this weekend and watching this movie with me. I’ve decided.”

No promises, but I thought I’d at least start chronicling my epic clumsiness.

Things I have dropped so far:
1. An entire box full of 8 cartons of soy.

It was dark, we had ten minutes until closing. Since our store is tiny and compact, soy is most often stored on a high shelf. I pulled the heavy box down, made it almost all the way to the fridge, and it slid out of my hands. Every single carton of soy in that box exploded. All over my clean fridges, bar, floor, and apron. I came home with soy down my shirt.

2. A full bowl of mocha.

The mocha was expired and I was supposed to throw it out, and the stainless-steel container slipped out of my hands, cascading up and over in slow-motion like such things do in movies. Mocha splattered all over the ceiling, the sink, my apron, my face, and the floor. Even after washing my hands and cleaning up the mess, everything I touched for the rest of the evening had smudges of chocolate on it. I came home with mocha down my shirt.

3. More than 3 pounds of coffee beans/ground coffee.

Whether I forget to lock the espresso machine and beans cascade onto the floor, or the container of ground coffee slides in between my wet and slippery fingers or someone bumps me or something happens and things get scattered and tossed. And I come home with coffee grounds down my shirt.

4. A gallon jug of milk.

I had five frappucinos in line after a latte. You get used to slinging jugs of milk around at work, especially since speed has been our number one priority this month. Dropping a gallon is generally no big deal, especially since it happens all of the time and they normally stay intact. This one didn’t. It exploded all over my face, the espresso bar, the plexiglass dividers… and the floor. This time I came home with green tea frappucino down my shirt.

5. A full liter of freshly steamed milk.

160 degree milk, all over myself. And the best part was probably stomping on the thermometer and breaking it.

6. An Americano.

Another barista ran into me while I was pulling out a cup filled with espresso shots and the espresso went all over me. I had to endure the rest of the day looking remarkably like a palomino! And I came home with dried espresso down my shirt.

I would like to take note that while I have worked for the company for about eight months now, every single one of these incidence has taken place in the last two! The week of working-eight-days-straight will most likely be trying… I’m just hoping for no more clumsiness.

Being the Fitting Room Lady is a big job. It means that I’m stuck behind a counter for 4+ hours, counting tickets, making sure people don’t steal, making faces at children, keeping said children from running into the fitting rooms stalls, picking up hangers… etc. My other big duty is that I’m in charge of Lingerie. Sometimes someone will take pity on poor, stationary me and bring me a rack of underwear and bras to ticket and put out on the floor, (when people do this it is AWESOME, because being the Fitting Room Lady is BORING) or even give me something else to do, like put number stickers on shoes, or organize the itty bitty size nubby things that go on the hangers (NEVER AGAIN).

Last night I came into work, started working, and another girl delivered to me a giant rack of hot pink thongs. They were frilly. They were lacy. They were thongy.

Here is a confession: Until I had my First Real Life Grownup Boyfriend, lingerie was the most terrifyingly embarassing section of the entire store. Not joking. Going bra shopping was a dreaded experience, not to even mention the unspeakable terror of having to buy… underpants. My mother would always drag me by the ear into that section and begin the painful process of pulling out pairs of underwear in my size that were frilly, lacy, sexy… my face would turn beet red as she pulled out a pair covered in lace and I would refuse to even entertain the thought of trying on, wearing, or purchasing anything like that. I normally settled for the old standard: the Hanes 3 pack of white, gray, and navy blue. Or stripes. You know, nothing too scary. Nothing too sexy. Nothing that required me to even think about underpants.

Now, I’ve grown up and changed and am even, at this point, interested in buying frilly lacy underthings, but still, the sight of a giant rack of hot pink frilly thongs is a bit of an affront to my eight year old self:

8 yo me: “What. The. H-E-Double-hockeysticks?!”
Me: “it’s cool, it’s cool. Don’t worry, girl. You don’t have to try these on.”
8 yo me: “B-but I have to touch them.”
Me: “Just chill. Okay? We’ll reminisce about when we got to wear Little Mermaid underpants later, okay?”
8 yo me: “Okay.”

So, we were cool. Right? I walk up to the giant rack of hot-pink thongs and was assailed by a scent-nay, a smell.

Stay with me kids, this doesn’t get too gross.

The smell of maple syrup.

Here’s another fun fact about me: In my past life job, I was the chief candy chef at the Oregon Zoo, which meant I would spend 8 hour days making fudge. Pans and pans and pans and pans of fudge. Go ahead, snicker. Get all of the jokes out of your system, because I made some damn fine good fudge and would come home reeking of sugar and butter and maple syrup. (Maple fudge with walnuts. Try it sometime!)

So I’m standing in the middle of a crowded department store, facing a rack of hot pink thongs and I’m suddenly smelling and craving maple fudge. This was when my eight year old self began having a panic attack.

8 yo me: “What the heck, grownups? I don’t even want to KNOW.”
Me: “Now, now, um, don’t freak out. It’s probably… I don’t know. We’ve always been kind of weird about scents… I doubt it’s something to do with anything like se-”
8 yo me: “Do not say that word.”
Me: “Um. Oookay… it’s probably just an accident. Or like, we’re strange. Let’s go ask someone else.”

So we did. And they agreed. And we asked a random dude what he could smell. And he said “Maple syrup.” And we asked our boss, and she said she was craving waffles.

So now we come to the question, “Why in the (h-e-double-hockeysticks) would hot pink lacy frilly thongs smell like maple syrup?!” I leave that to you, internet*.

*Advanced research (ie: asking my friends who are known to have multiple fetishes) has indicated that this isn’t a common/documented fetish. Is it kind of like how dudes associate bacon with sex? Or something. I don’t know, I’m just really freakin’ confused.