Shopper’s Delight.

Ed walks in to work at 9 o’clock. He blinks away the drowsiness while inspecting the empty staff room. He takes his time looking carefully into his locker, so that any passing employee may think he looks busy. 
‘I’m too tired,’ he says as he yawns and stretches the consciousness back into his body, believing he may be the first person to desire retirement. Five more minutes are spent in the staff room enjoying the final drops of his cup of tea. 
Customers are now sidling into the store at their own pace and are fondling the different textures of clothes and reading the backs of books and DVDs. 
Out comes Ed into the store. He’s feeling much better with the knowledge that there are only 50 minutes left in his first hour of work. That’s not too bad - he can just about get through that. 
From the back door to the counter he walks with some purpose.
The registers are located on a square shaped ‘island’ located in the middle of the rectangular store. Two registers reside on each side of the square facing the exits and entrances, allowing for four points of purchase.

There he sees his colleague serving a customer, Ed doesn’t notice either of their faces, but he amiably acknowledges that she is there. His colleague brightly returns, ‘Hi!’ and glances at the time and is too polite to mention the lateness of his arrival. 
Now Ed is here, she is able to turn her attention to the far side of the store, re-racking, fixing, and tidying items on shelves - a term known as recovery in the sphere of retail.

Ed looks up and out and into that world and nods his assent to the day. Now that he’s live and roused things are not so bad, though his first customer’s face is still indistinguishable from another. They purchase a t-shirt and shorts, most expertly folded by Ed, accompanied by ornaments not so worth remembering. 

Ed takes a survey of the store. It’s his store at the moment, owing to nobody else being in the island with him. He takes a few shots at the bin with unwanted receipts and notices the carriage of certain customers. 
His boss, walking past, gives Ed a tired look and says, ‘right on time again, hey Ed?’ Ed smiles at him and says inwardly, ‘I can’t believe I keep getting away with that.’

He serves a customer with a strong smell that reminds him of somebody somewhere, though he can’t place it. He scans the items and sets them in front of her. He reads the total as advised by the computer, but is told by the customer that it can’t be right. He tells her it is what the computer says, but relents that the computer can’t always be right - just like the customer, he quips. She tells him that it said 5 pounds on the shelf she picked it up from - but to Ed’s eyes there is no such discount appearing on the computer. Well, technology can often be unreliable, and Ed is not one to be the man of the company, so he consents to the lower price. Take care, he says, and the customer is assuredly happy.

Enter to the right of the island, Grace; a young, blonde, wide-eyed, green-eyed woman with wavy-shag hair. Ed says hi and Grace says hi! and she kicks the ground and skips in. What a wonder. It’s in Ed’s nature to enjoy being a lazy, unabiding, afternoon man; but he’d just as quickly change his stars to be a sunny morning creature if given the opportunity, although he’d probably squander that one too.
‘How de do?’ asks Ed and Grace smiles at his introduction. 
‘Well, how de do dee to you! What a day, Ed - We have cerulean skies and malleable minds’, this she directs to him. ‘What is the news from the island?’
‘Less than was expected, but I suppose that could have been predicted. There are a couple of customers about, but I still hold dominion.’ 
‘They’ll be in their droves soon, bleating at the sales. Looking for bargains, scamming for discounts. They’ll be scrounging for deals, and swapping the tags - popping the tags!’
Ed is not quite sure what she means, but she rejoins, ‘Well, they’re all out for a deal aren’t they? We have SALE plastered over the windows, yet they still find fault with clothes or tell us we’ve priced them wrong, or our machines can’t add up like they can. As if they’re some kind of computer themselves.’
‘That’s interesting,’ Ed says. ‘You know, I had one - it’s interesting that you have such a pessimistic outlook to contrast your appearance and how you float about. It feels directly at odds.’ Grace shrugs and Ed continues, ‘You know, I had one, one of those customers, telling me it was on sale when the machine said it wasn’t.’
‘Oh yeah, they do it all the time, it’s one of their things.’ 
‘Whose things?’ Asks Ed.
‘Those certain customers,’ says Grace.
It certainly is interesting, thinks Ed, but he hadn’t too much time to ponder as Grace is called out to the shop floor and Ed has another customer. 
Six DVDs are placed like two lines of tiles on the counter. These are to be the purchase. 
‘Good morning, ma’am?’ Ed smiles to her. 
‘Yes, good, thank you,’ she says, speaking quickly. ‘I’m wondering how you would do telling me the price of these discs.’
Ed starts an answer, but she continues.
‘My son loves the dog films, but he also has an obsession with tractors. I’m not sure how many to get, seeing as they can be costly at times. So, what can you tell me, how much is each?’
‘The prices are over there on the stand, ma’am - the little white sticker…’ Ed trails off as he sees a young man near the DVDs glancing over both of his shoulders and back to the rack. ‘...On the front of each slot.’ He trails back in as his eyes return to the customer.
‘Yes, of course, but I don’t have my glasses, and it’s always best to check with a professional as the prices can always be different.’ 
Ed’s eyebrow raises slightly at this and he goes back to the young man at the DVDs. This time he notices the hood upon his head and the worn-out trainers. He notices his scratchy moustache and his itchy fingers. There may have been dialogue spoken to him, but Ed is watching this grey-hooded figure with intense scrutiny. Scrutinising his look, his posture, his twitch, all culminating to an accusation of -
‘Hi! As I said, the dogs are his favourite.’ The customer is back in his vision, but it was not Ed who had changed his gaze, it was the customer who had interrupted his, and had placed herself square in his vision. Ed shifts his lean to the right to clear his view, but once he could resume his interest in his suspect, it is as soon covered, once again by the ever-growing corpulence of this customer. Now he notices she steps in his way. Now he notices her wide shoulders and stretched sleeves. It is slowly becoming clear. These are some of ‘those customers’, pulling the wool over his eyes like some dormant corporate doormat, disregarding the years he’d spent helping the customer and being, what he considered to be, a man of the people. But Grace was right, Ed didn’t notice before, but now he notices everything. Their faces, their distinguishing features, their hair colour, and the slogans on their t-shirts. 

After obscuring his vision once more, Ed had seen enough. ‘Excuse me, miss, but this distraction will not help you.’
‘I beg your-’
‘Your son is there behind you, in my vision as clear as can be, thieving our property. You yourself are now an accessory, as you’ve tried so very hard to obscure my line of sight. That’s a crime too, I’m sure.’ 
Quiet at first. The next to speak loses.
The customer turns around to view the young man, but only briefly, and her turn back is swift and great. 
‘How - seriously - How dare you accuse me of theft from your store, when I am honestly standing at the counter and asking, literally, for the price of the very items I am accused of stealing. In front of the people in this store I stand here and you accuse me.’
Ed looks behind the customer and the hooded young man is gone. The rack is seemingly in the same condition as before.
‘Well, I didn’t exactly accuse you of stealing, I believed it was the -’
‘The young man behind me! My son! My son is five years old, absent, and you accuse him and an innocent young man, who I do not even know, to be stealing. I’m glad your name is on your badge, because I do not care to hear you speak again and I will be making a complaint.’

She walks away clouded in passionate temper and Ed stands there dazed. Not the daze he entered work with, but another of confusion and uncertainty. He was searching deep within for that small bit of self-assurance used to override doubt and reason to help him to feel better.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, and whether he served another customer in that time, as he was not noticing anything, when Grace re-enters the frame.
‘Ed!’ she cries as she floats in and kicks her butt. 
‘Grace,’ he says. ‘I think you could have been wrong. And I could be in trouble. I’ve just wrongfully accused a woman of having a young man as a child,’ which wasn’t the bad part, ‘and accused her further of assisting that young man in stealing DVDs, and further to that, assumed that the young man was even stealing in the first place.’
Ed is feeling the fool when Grace rejoins, ‘Well of course he was stealing! And she was helping. She’ll be picked up outside the shop in no time. We have two hard-working security guards that patrol this complex with a keen eye or two. They don’t just give those jobs to anyone.’
‘Are you sure they were “those type of customers”?’ 
‘Oh, yeah. We call him one of those maladjusted youths. He’s probably quite gifted.’
Ed’s head is still feeling a little cloudy, but he is definitely feeling better in himself after being spoken to in such reassuring, confident words. The young man had certainly looked suspicious. He’d shown the common traits of what he’d imagine a maladjusted youth to have.
‘Just look around you, Ed. They’re everywhere, each and every customer in here wants something for nothing.’
Ed’s eyes take him around the shop floor, as far as he could see: customers’ heads poking over racks of clothes, a customer holding a swimsuit to their body, another checking if a sizable toy would fit in her bag post-purchase, this one is carrying 2 pieces of clothing over the 6 coathanger limit to the changing room. In walks a young mother, in her activewear, smiling, and projecting a bright, ‘Good morning!’ to the two working companions in the island. Ed and Grace smile back, and Ed nods to the customer and turns to Grace who turns to Ed and shakes her head, this is another one. Her impressionable friend’s mood turns grave. 
The silky tones of the manager’s voice come upon the tannoy, calling Grace to the back room. ‘Oh! I’m on early lunch today.’ She pats him on the shoulder, ‘you enjoy the show!’ 
‘You enjoy your break!’ he squeaks out. 

Now he is alone. Alone with an excess of customers. Reaching the counter is the customer who was sizing up the toy. ‘Just this today?’ Asks Ed. 
‘Yep, just this today,’ she smiles back. But this is a different toy, thinks Ed. And further, her bag is out of its natural shape and is unmistakably bigger than before. But what is he to do? He’d already made one accusation that was unfounded - at least in the eyes of the law. Perhaps he’d be best to let this one go. Although, by her act alone, she has taken advantage of his genial character. He’d considered himself a small cog in the machine of corporate disruption, but now it had all changed. He had been used. 
He scans her item all the same, but says 75 pounds, rather than the 40 that was on the till. ‘Oop,’ she says, a little confused, ‘I thought it was cheaper than that.’ 
‘It’s 75 pounds for the two items, I believe,’ says Ed with his most pleasant smile.
‘Oh, it’s just the one item today. Just this here.’ She smiles too.
‘Oh, I see. Just the one item today. Are you sure? You’re not going for two?’
‘No, thanks, just one will be fine and will suit my son all the same.’ Still smiling.
The moment was now. If he was going to accuse her of theft and snatch her bag and pull and seize the unlawful toy, he has to do it now. 
But he doesn’t. He lets her go. 

He watches her walk out. He feels bruised and beaten despite no confrontation taking place.
He surveys the store once again. They are all still here. Perhaps not the same customers as before, but they are all still here.

The swimsuit woman is here. A man, of extruded torso, is there, reaching up to high places against the wall and then lowering items to an unidentified area concealed by the racks, presumably into his carrybag. There is one dilapidated man, scuffing his feet with such confidence and such disdain for his own self-perception, that one has to be sure he is up to something. Up to something, indeed.
There are many, oh so many.

A voice asks a question from the back of the island. Ed swivels to help her. She asks, ‘Where are the changerooms?’
‘It’s over there.’ He turns back the other way to point to the changerooms. He notices a small line forming in front of the counter, along with many suspect customers behind the line all looking about themselves. How interesting. ‘Oh!’ she says. ‘And also what is the price of this item?’
‘The price of this? Uh, let me see. Fifteen pounds it says right here on the tag.’ He’s soon to turn again when she interrupts, ‘Ah, thank you very much. My eyes are bad. And what size does this say?’
‘The size of this? It’s a 10.’ 
This time he turns back unadulterated and the line is still there, but those figures behind are gone. How peculiar. While stepping back over to serve the growing queue, he turns his head to the back of the island. The lady is gone.
‘My God.’
The queue has doubled to the size of a two-person job and so he calls over the tannoy, ‘assistance to the registers, please,’ and within a minute he has the support of a colleague. The pair serve their customers and to begin there is nothing extraordinary. He sells an iPad, the usual clothes, and a pair of headphones to seemingly innocuous patrons.
In time though, he is flanked by customers colliding with the island asking trivial questions. The location of the changeroom, a classic; whether the manager is in today, a diabolical one; and what time the store is closing. He eyes his colleague, but she is still smiling and serving the customers one-by-one. He looks at the line. It isn’t growing, but this has become more than a two person job. 
‘Grace to the registers, please.’
Ed has broken a sweat when Grace drifts into the island. ‘You need me?’ she asks them both.
The smiling colleague looks at her and shrugs her shoulders. Grace then looks at a perspiring, red-faced Ed. ‘Are, uh, you okay, Ed?’ 
‘Help me.’

Once the customers had been served, the crowd dispersed, and the sweat dried up, Grace and Ed stood alone in the island. There are still customers floating about the store, looking, trying on, and fiddling, but none nearby. ‘Ed,’ says Grace. ‘I think you might have taken what I’d said a little too seriously.’
‘Too seriously?’ chokes a delirious Ed. ‘You don’t believe all of that? About them?’ 
‘Of course I do. But I don’t wind myself up about it all. I don’t try to fight it all myself. There’s too many of them for just one man. That’s why people spit in burgers at Burger King. It’s about the little efforts, noticeable or not.’ 
‘I see,’ says Ed, as one last drop of sweat drips from his temple.
‘So just enjoy your day, smile, wipe your pits, and just take care, okay?’
Grace crosses back out into the wild of the shop floor. Ed stands there perplexed and despondent. It isn’t yet lunch and Ed is more stressed than he’s allowed himself to be in this job throughout his entire tenure. 
But, Grace was right. The first time and the second time. There is no point stewing over it all, or else he’ll have an aneurysm before tea. He’ll smile to their faces, and be a real man of the people again. All will be well on his happy little island. There is a real lesson here today, he tells himself. It’s a big battle out there, and you’re only one person, you can’t be expected to take it all onto yourself. It’s about any win - big or small. 
He spots two very young girls hovering around the island. Abashed and shy, they are nudging each other closer to the counter. He smiles at them.
‘You ask,’ one says to the other. ‘No, you ask!’ the other replies. ‘No, you!’
Ed chuckles. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘one of you ask!’
The girls look at each other, shrug, and pull out knives from their coats.
‘Give us the fucking money, you prick!’