I’m Happy But You Don’t Like Me

Leave a reply

And now it’s Friday. Annemarie is in Arcata, Harpy in in the Washington Heights section of the Dominican Republic and Bill is on the Garden State Parkway headed to Atlantic City after not driving a bus for the past 2 weeks.

He drove a bus once actually and I believe this was during the work week.

It’s been a hot day, temperatures in the 90 degree range, with tomorrow promising to hit 100 degrees. Luckily I can dress casually when I work. And I’m lucky to be working in an air conditioned store.

Today was a bit of an odd day. I headed in early to rectify the problem I had with closing. Don Birch was there already and fixed the problem. He and I had a nice little chat. He’s going to be taking the Series 7 test to become a stock broker and is expecting a package.

He doesn’t want Marcus or Calvin to know that he’s looking to leave and so he asked me to keep an eye out for the package and stash it away and also give him a call. Not a problem I said.

Raymond is also looking to get out, Sean is going to college and probably not stick around once that is through and I of course am looking for a regular 9 to 5, Monday through Friday job. Don Birch, Raymond and Sean have both spoken with me separately telling me their plans to get out, being so dissatisfied with the way things are run there.

This job is just a stop gap for me and I am on a few email lists that send me listings every day. I’m currently under consideration for one position, and have been under consideration for that position for about 2 weeks now.

The day at work was rather cool, Calvin was out and Marcus is still listed as being on his honeymoon. A number of Australians came in buying cigars and thrilled to know they can smoke in the backroom.

Most of the customers were nice enough, but there was one that was an absolute nightmare. He came in a bit lame in one leg. A semi-regular customer that no one else wanted to deal with, so it fell to me. I followed him into the humidor, and he immediately and loudly mentioned that he didn’t need help.

He said it twice and I mentioned that I wasn’t going to help him, that I was there to write down the numbers of the cigars so it will be easier to check out. He was also blind in one eye and scrutinized every cigar price listed, complaining that things were so expensive.

He would pick up a cigar and eyeball it and then put it back. I maintained a distance, but finally spoke up when he started putting cigars in the wrong place.

He seemed to be on medication and also reeked of booze and started screaming that Raymond wouldn’t talk to him the way I did and scurried out of the humidor like Laurence Olivier in Richard III yelling that I was stalking him.

Raymond calmed him down somewhat and Richard III stayed away from, before heading back into the humidor and screaming loud enough that anyone outside of the sealed room could hear him plainly. Don Birch was going to call security but I talked him out of it, preferring to have Raymond finish the deal.

He soon left and Raymond mentioned that on top of the booze and the meds seeping through his skin, he also smelled like he soiled himself. It was truly a strange scene, topped with my repeating, ‘A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse’.

I headed home about 2.5 hours after that, making it from the shop to the bus terminal in 13.6 minutes, thanks to the first 3 songs from King Crimson, Discipline.

I’m Stone In Love With You

2 Replies

It was a busy day and a difficult day. It didn’t start out difficult. It started out OK I guess. No running errands before work. In fact I took my time mostly.

I neglected to write about how I was interview by the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Or rather possibly. I don’t know if my quote will make it to the printed page. Publish and be damned says I, I publish my own damnation.

Some columnist named Evan Newmark was walking to the Wall Street Journal offices in the News Corpse building, walking down the Upper West Side and stopping at various landmarks like Zabar’s and stopped by the cigar shop.

He was inquiring in each store and stop, whether or not we felt the economy was on the rebound. I said that I thought it was, albeit slowly and people (mainly men) are still buying cigars. He asked if it was mainly monied businessmen, the captains of industry stereotype and I did my best to disprove that image, telling him bus drivers and garbage men as well as other walks of life come in and purchase their cigars.

It was a brief interview and I asked him to contact me if it were to be published. Evan Newmark wasn’t sure if it would make it to press. That was yesterday.

There was an article in today’s journal that had a brief interview with one of our customers at another cigar shop across town though and it wasn’t by Evan Newmark, but by someone else.

The Journal is a Murdoch paper and therefore anathema to me. But of course if I’m in it, I’ll buy it.

Today went alright. Some stress between Calvin & Raymond but that seemed to have been squashed by the end of the day.

Raymond is quite the gossip and whispering in my ear about how Calvin likes to have a couple of drinks after he has his lunch which usually runs over an hour and a half. I suppose it’s true since Calvin gets more chatty after lunch.

I had him going on about how he likes jazz and his opinion on who the most important jazz figure was in the twentieth century. Louis Armstrong it turned out to be. Made sense to me, since Louis Armstrong was a giant in popular culture back then.

He was also a major pot head, which could explain his smiling and laughing all the time.

My own lunch was spent outside the park on a bench, reading The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore. He was on the Colbert Report a month ago and also came into the shop a week or so ago. Nice guy, and meeting him inspired me to take the book out of the bibliothèque.

Once again, I closed the store which seems to be my designated role. It went well but there was a discrepancy which was all my fault, ringing up a credit card purchase as both credit and cash. But since it’s been identified and accounted for it shouldn’t be too much of a problem to clear up.

At least I hope so. I would have liked to have seen the Guitar Bar All Stars by the river at Sinatra Park tonight like I have previous years but this is how things are these days.

Yes, smoking yet another cigar.