Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 29-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
Fancy MacAllister, customer service agent, gourmet food.
“Excuse me, sir. Can I ask you to leave your backpack over at the cash desk? They’ll give you a ticket for it.”
“So right away you’re accusing me of stealing.”
“No. It’s just store policy.”
“I’d never set foot in this store again if you weren’t the only supplier of hazelnut extract west of the Rockies.”
I say nothing and continue putting price tags on overly complicated garlic presses. The guy is some sort of rageaholic looking for a measly bottle of $3.39 nut extract. Fuck him. Ingrid, my supervisor, is standing next to me, checking my application of price stickers on the garlic presses. She whispers, “I’m sorry you feel that way, sir.” And I’m thinking—jeez, he’s never going to hear you talking that quietly. Plus, she has approximately zero in the way of interpersonal skills. I’m sorry you feel that way, sir? It sounds snide. This would likely be the best way to enrage the guy further, to escalate the thing now halted to the next degree of crazy. He’s already yelling, bright red and trembling. Plus, he’s decided to extract his valuables from his enormous packsack and leave it in the middle of the aisle as a form of protest. Cursing, he takes his laptop, his wallet, a binder and a ring of maybe 30 keys to the back of the store. Whatever, guy.
It wasn’t until the next day, at home, that I realized Ingrid was whispering what she expected me to say to the nut-extract guy. I laughed. I had, appropriately enough, ignored her.
“Is That You?” from Janis Zeppelin (Smarten UP! 2003) (download):
