by Freeman Hall
“It is now,” I said, “My work here is done.”
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Athletic Roach had been destroyed.
“I’m glad that’s over,” said Jules.
“My hero!” Cammie said, her hand on her heaving chest.
“Great job, hon,” Marsha said.
I turned to Judy and said, “I killed it, but I sure as hell am not cleaning it up.”
“I’ll get Housekeeping,” she replied, jumping toward the phone.
I took the Kenneth Cole bag back to the register area, where Raelene was still standing.
She feigned ignorance during the entire drama, acting like she had nothing to do with Athletic Roach’s reign of terror.
“Yah, looks like you all have a roach problem in this store,” Raelene said with a smile.
“Looks like we do,” I replied, staring her down.
Don’t try and get out of this one Raelene, you’re the biggest roach of them all!
“Before I open this bag, Raelene, is there anything you want to tell me?”
If another Athletic Roach popped out I was going to fling it right at her.
Raelene ignored me like she usually does, took a sip from her Big Gulp nonchalantly, and said, “Yah, I think I’ll get one of these Juicy cosmetic bags. You can credit the difference of the Kenneth Cole on my card.”
You bet, little piggy. Happy to be of service.
From that point on, whenever any of us saw Piggy Shopper, Raelene Reynolds, rolling into our department, we always made sure there was plenty of glass cleaner and antibacterial soap handy.
A can of floral scented Raid was also on standby.
Purchased by yours truly.
Full Moon Fancy
I knew something was amiss when I walked in at 1:00 p.m. to start my closing shift and Jules didn’t even say, “Hi gorgeous,” like she usually does. On this day it was: “Full-moon freaks all morning! Judy’s been in a meeting since 10:00. It’s total hell, I hope you brought drugs,” and then she ran off to lunch, leaving me with the phone ringing and a woman at the counter wanting to know if we had a wallet that had thirteen credit-card slots.
Full moon? I didn’t know it was a full moon. Should I be concerned about its being a full moon?
I quickly found out, I should be very concerned about a full moon.
There’s a whole army of lab-coated geeks out there in scientific-study land who say that full moons have no effect on human beings whatsoever. All I have to say to them is,“Come work at The Big Fancy under a full moon and you will be rewriting your findings — while you’re running for the street.”
After I dealt with the woman who wanted exactly thirteen credit-card slots by counting every wallet’s slot, only to find out none of them had thirteen, I was hit by a wave of full-moon craziness.
A woman on the phone wanting to know if I’d give her 50% off all the Gucci bags because there’s a website that does it. “Go online and check it out for yourself,” she said.
This tween girl wanted to return her Juicy Couture bowler because her girlfriend had spilled Coke all over it and she seemed to think that it would be no problem for us to give her a new one — and the bag was two seasons old!
An absolute nut-job Picky Bitch of a customer claimed that all three red Monsac totes we had in stock were lopsided. I had no idea what the fuck she was talking about, but she kept crouching down in front of the counter, eyeballing them like a human carpenter’s level, and saying, “They are all off just slightly. Lopsided. I’m really surprised you can’t see it.”
Then I saw Judy get off the escalator and march toward the department. I could tell by her reddened face she was on the retail warpath.
I wanted to jump inside of the Marc Jacobs Venetia Satchel, zip myself up, and hide.
But there was no hiding from the General in the Handbag Jungle.
“FREE-MAN!” she yelled the minute she got to the Corral, ignoring the lurking customers, “I need a word with you.”
Oh shit. Here it comes. I think I knew what this was all about.
My sales were way down for the previous several months. It was a slow time. February and March always suck in retail. There’s little merchandise, everyone is freaked out about their taxes, and people aren’t quite ready for that $400 Coach raffia straw satchel yet.
So, I had broken The Big Fancy’s cardinal rule (which is not mentioned in the Employee Handbook) and had done the unthinkable — I misfired.
Misfiring was when a sales associate didn’t sell enough to make their imposed goal and The Big Fancy reimbursed them by paying an hourly rate instead of commission. When I was hired, Two-Tone made it sound like they were the nicest company ever, having a cushion plan and watching my back to make sure I had a decent guaranteed hourly should I hit some slow cycles during the year.
Total fucking bullshit.
Turns out, anyone who misfired three times in a row was subject to being terminated. The Big Fancy felt that if you’d had a month and a half of poor sales (even in February and March), you were not the magical sales associate (SHARK) they were looking to have in their “family” (OF SHARKS), and you were then told perhaps it’s time to seek out other options for yourself. Basically, your ass was fired.
“You need to have a meeting with Suzy, right now,” said the General, “She is having one-on-one chats with everyone in the store who misfired during this last cycle. Yours is right now.”
“But Jules is at lunch,” I protested, trying to stave off the inevitable confrontation with Satan.
“I will work on the floor, and Marci should be here within the hour. Go!”
The General had spoken. I went to meet my fate.
Suzy Davis-Johnson’s spacious office with massive windows over-looked the Hollywood Hills. When I entered she was seated in an elevated throne-like antique chair made from cherry wood and purple velvet behind an imposing wooden desk the size of a Cadillac.
“HANDBAG DUDE!! HOW ARE YA TODAY?”
God, please kill me now. Lightning bolt. Exploding fluorescent light bulb. Sniper. Anything! Just take me out!
“Hi, Suzy. Doing good, thanks,” I said.
Except the moon is full and there are freaks everywhere.
“Well, have a seat and join the party!”
WTF? My misfire admonishing is a party? In that case, I’d like a beer and some Cheetos.
I sat down in one of the shrunken chairs in front of her monumental desk. Suzy Satan looked like she was about to swoop down on me. I felt small and insignificant. Like a worm. She had on a blinding black and white zebra-print jacket over a floral pink beaded camisole, and a silk scarf loosely rolled around her neck, attached with a gold flower pin. Her face was painted with deep bronze eye shadow, hollowed-looking cheeks, and orangey lipstick that made her look like a scarecrow.
I immediately noticed we weren’t alone.
The Stephanator and Two-Tone were seated behind me in the back corner of the room. Her head bent, in deep concentration, Stephanie took notes like a court stenographer while Two-Tone Tammy sat with a stack of reports, ready to judge my Big Fancy performance.
Yay! Two of my favorite people. Maybe I should ask the Stephanator if she wants to dance?
“SOOOOO,” said Satan,“Do you know why you’re meeting with me today?”
“Umm . . . because I misfired?” I said.
“You got it, dude! For the last month, misfire in this store has been out of control, and I’m aiming to get a handle on it. This meeting is to see how I can help and how we can stop it from happening.”
“Freeman has misfired two times consecutively in Handbags,”Tammy announced coldly, as if I was not in the room.
Satan was not happy; her clown makeup looked like it was starting to crack.
“Oh nooooo. We can’t let that happen. I have such great expectations of you always.”
Suzy Davis-Johnson then winked at me wickedly and grabbed her calculator.
For the n
ext several minutes she rattled off a bunch of numbers, tapped away on the calculator, added this number to that number, then subtracted another number from some other number, then divided a different number by one of the other numbers.
I went into a complete numerical coma.
My glossed-over eyes focused on her calculator and scratch pad as she wrote a bunch of numbers down. I nodded my head in agreement every time she asked me if I understood what she was doing.
“You see that, Freeman! If you had only sold five dollars more per hour, you would have made your goal!”
“I did make my goal, but I had 10,000 dollars in returns. That’s what killed me.”
“Returns are no excuse for not selling enough, Freeman. You need to sell more to compensate for your returns. Five dollars is a pair of socks.”
“But Suzy, I sell handbags.”
“And you are twenty feet away from the sock department. If you had suggested a pair of socks to your customers, you’d have made your goal. We have a whole store full of merchandise, and socks are included in that.”
Are you kidding me right now? Sell socks with handbags? How about I shove a pair of socks down your throat and beat you with the fucking calculator?
“Umm . . . okay. Yes. I’ll try to sell some socks.”
“It’s all about rockin’ your multiple sales, Freeman! That’s how you make your goals!”
“Yes, Suzy. I’m going to give it 100% to make sure I don’t misfire any more.”
“I am so pleased to hear that, Freeman,” she said softly, then becoming serious, “because I have to tell ya, this meeting is about making it perfectly clear misfire is completely unacceptable. It is grounds for termination. Three strikes, you’re out. Freeman, you are on your second strike. Corporate is not happy with the performance of sales-people in this store. Everyone has to pull their weight. I am counting on you not to misfire during the next pay cycle. If you do not make it, I’m afraid we will be having a very, very serious discussion. I don’t want to lose you. You are a tremendous asset to this store.”
What the fuck? Is she for real? I’m a tremendous asset to the store, yet I could be fired?
“I really do mean that, dude,” crooned Suzy Davis-Satan, “I need you to put your game face on and make some touchdowns by getting those sales up!”
Oh God, now the lame sports metaphors. I wish I had a football to shove up her ass.
“Yes, Suzy, I’m going to get those sales up!”
“Do you feel all the information I have given you today will help you not misfire in the future?”
I could feel the heat from Stephanator’s eyes searing into me as she prepared to write down my response for documentation.
I told them all yes and left.
I returned from Suzy’s scary powwow feeling like I might as well start packing my Big Fancy bags. Jules and Marci were nowhere in sight, and the General was still manning the registers.
“This day is going to kill me,” she said, as pissed off as I’d ever seen her. “Jules had to leave, one of her girls is sick. Marci’s car broke down when she was coming back from San Diego. I can’t get a hold of anyone else, so it’s just you tonight.”
I was already not liking the sound of that, but before I could protest too loudly, Judy handed a customer a shopping bag, turned to me and said, “I’m out of here, deal with it.”
Then she was gone.
And I was all by myself under a Big Fancy full moon.
Eccentricity filled the air.
What followed was a parade of Crazies, Psychos, Nasties, and Bloodsuckers.
A Nasty switched prices and tried to buy a Juicy Couture handbag with a wallet ticket for $65. How stupid did she take me for?
Discount Rat Patty waddled in and drove me “Is deescount?” insane! She wanted more percentages on just about everything on the sale table.
A baby screamed for ten minutes while her big brother decided to lick all the cases and then play football with a $400 Cole Haan satchel.
Another Nasty-Ass Thief wanted to return a $1,000 Fendi with torn tickets and receipts.
A woman got angry and accused The Big Fancy of selling fake Coach bags because she thought the lining and stamp inside looked off.
A customer wanted a discount on a $75 sale bag because it had a tiny little scratch on the bottom. I’m like, “The bag was $200! You’re already getting a huge discount!”
A woman brought in four handbags she wanted fixed and refurbished, so I had to fill out repair tickets and write notes on each one because she wasn’t willing to spend past a certain amount to have them fixed.
Then this man wanted me to look up all 100 stores in the country and give him a register print-out. I told him I couldn’t and he argued that they do it in customer service all the time . . . then a lady butted in, wanting me to take her credit-card payment. When I told her I had someone on the phone and a customer waiting to return, she got pissed and started screaming about how horrible the customer service was. “THIS IS NOT THE BIG FANCY WAY!”
Returns rolled in by the minute. One after the other. I just started hurling them into a pile behind the counter. Judy would be pissed, but whatever. I might be getting terminated.
Let someone else put them all away!
One of the returning customers said, “Why did you just throw it like that?” after I violently hurled her used Dooney & Bourke hobo into the pile. I looked her dead in the eye, and said, “Because I can and that’s where it belongs — you used it and now we have to throw it away.”
The woman was pissed. She didn’t like it one bit that I wasn’t happy with her irresponsible behavior, so she went up and complained to the night manager, saying I was rude doing her return. The night manager then called and said I’d better not get any more complaints or she’d be telling Satan about me tomorrow.
Satan is already twenty seconds away from firing me — go ahead!
I hung up the phone and turned around, and a woman wanted to return a Kate Spade she had used for six months because it wasn’t wearing well. “I paid good money for this! Look at it?”
I gave her a huge fake-ass shit-eating retail grin and took it back.
Then, five minutes to closing, a plain-looking Asian woman appeared at the Corral.
As I approached her reluctantly, I managed to get out a civil, “Hello. . . .”
“Show me Coach,” she said.
And then I saw the hair.
She had a five-inch hair that had to be as thick as a blade of grass growing out of a mole in the center of her chin.
I stared at the hair like it was a rare, newly discovered species.
Long Hair turned out to be a total Bloodsucker. She kept saying, “Show me” over and over. Who was she? The Vampire Bavaro’s sister?
I finally stopped showing her anything. She clearly was not going to buy. I had to save myself.
So I went in the stockroom and called the department. Came back out of the stockroom with the phone ringing and Long Hair saying, “Your phone is ringing.”
I smiled at her nicely, answered the phone, and pretended to have a customer conversation.
She was lucky I didn’t reach for the scissors.
Long Hair finally wandered out the mall doors at 9:20.
By the time I finished cleaning duties and closing the registers, it was 10:00 and I was the last sales associate to leave The Big Fancy.
My trip down the stairs was unbearable. I was too tired to think about anything. My brain had melted. Nothing there. Blank. I could barely concentrate on not falling down the flights.
But as I opened the employee door leading out of Mount Fancy, I saw the big, bright, full moon, shining down on me in all its alluring brilliance.
How can something that beautiful cause so many people to go psycho inside a store?
Big Nightmare #3
It was a bad idea to think I could come home after barely surviving a full-moon shift at The Big Fancy and then actually do some writing.
But the chaotic events of the day had fueled my passion. If Suzy Davis-Satan planned on firing me, let her! I’d have a screenplay to start shopping around in no time.
I had decided a while back that Love in a Fitting Room was too much of a hard sell. Even though Brokeback Mountain was a huge success, was the public really ready for A-list male stars doing one another in fitting rooms at a Big Fancy Department Store? Probably not.
Thus a new script idea was born: Escape from The Big Fancy.
I’ll pitch it as Die Hard in a department store, starring Brad Pitt and his badass woman, Angelina Jolie! They were amazing in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I just knew that if they read my script (once it was written) they’d want to work together again — plus, they could even have their kids in it if they wanted! I’d write roles for everyone!
Before turning on the computer and diving into Escape from The Big Fancy, I decided to wind down a bit. I popped open a beer and watched a South Park repeat — the one where all the old people in town are running everyone over. It reminded me of half the customers at The Big Fancy.
During a commercial my mind started wandering.
I can’t believe that woman tonight with that long hair dangling from her chin. So gross. Suzy Satan is such a bitch. I work my ass off for that store. I don’t want to go look for another job, but if I have to, maybe I’ll go applyat a movie studio. Maybe they have a gift store I can work in. Wait a minute. No! No more stores. I’m supposed to write screenplays.
My eyelids became droopy.
Before I knew it, everything went black.
Then white.
A blank white page.
Black Courier font words magically typed across it.
A script!
Night of the Shopping Dead
An original screenplay by Queer-Eye Handbag Guy
Down at the bottom, in the left corner, it said:
Revised final draft
July 18, 2020
Rewritten a trillion times
Represented by Big Fancy
Produced by Hell
Authenticated by Satan
Then those famous screenplay words appeared.
FADE IN
