My Christmas Story
Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2004 6:47 pm
It's been many a year since I've felt a tinge of holiday spirit. Retail has mercilessly throttled any joyous, spiritual associations I had with the season clean out of my soul. This has been especially true this Christmas season, as I find myself in Best Buy, one of the deepest, darkest dungeons of retail despair in the nation. It is, with no uncertainty, the worst job I've had yet, and that includes the eight months I spent at Subway.
So it was about 8:00 or 9:00 P.M, and I was in the middle of an 11-hour shift that would be punctuated by a four hour break before I'd have to return at 5:00 AM. Needless to say, I was not in the highest of spirits, and was spending most of my time explaining to wild-eyed parents that no, we didn't have any PS2's or Xboxes, no I didn't know when we'd be getting them in, and no, I didn't know where they could find any. I was avoiding outright greeting anyone, which is actually a write-upable offense, and, eventually, find myself almost alone on the PS2 aisle. An elderly black man was surveying the games on the shelf, and nearby a young white boy, about 4 or 5, was shuffling through said games. I was going to ignore them, but my conscience mustered what little energy it had and I thought about the suffering this man must've had to endure in his early years, plus he was wearing the same kind of Kangol ivy hat that my grandpa used to wear, so I trudged over at the dismay of my legs and coughed up a lackluster "Is there anything I can help you find?"
The man replied with a smiling, "Oh, he's looking for something." Then the boy, who I had assumed wasn't with him, turned his attention to me and explained that he didn't know the title of what he was looking for, but he'd recognize the cover. He then began explaining in excited, garbled English, the mechanics of the game he was after. I listened with some small amusement to his lisped chatter, though I could make out very little and knew in my soul he was describing something horrible like American Chopper or Tak 2 Staff of Dreams. Suddenly, in the barrage of broken English, I understood one key phrase with perfect clarity, and it struck my brain like a bolt of lightning in the pitch darkness of my soul: "...and you roll and roll and roll and roll all over everything." My hunched shoulders snapped straight and my half-mast eyes shot wide open. I exclaimed, "Oh! Katamari Damacy!" as though I'd just solved a thousand year mystery.
With a sudden burst of vigor from the blue, I leapt over to the K section of the aisle only to find the "Katamari Damacy" file card with nothing in front of it. My heart sank. Since I started here, this child was only the second person to ask me for Katamari, and the first was a knowledgable 20-something fanboy. The only reasons I could think of that would explain how this good-natured elderly black man came to be guardian of this 4-year old white boy were tragic, and for the first time in my entire retail career, I could not bring myself to tell this poor boy that we didn't have the game he was looking for. I violated store policy and instructed the elderly black man to wait a couple of minutes while I checked the warehouse.
With mysterious energy from heaven flowing into my body, I dashed to the back and immediately began rummaging through totes of recently-arrived games. As the pile of totes diminished with no sign of Katamari, I started getting frantic. It would be unbearable if I had to go back out there and explain to them after making them wait that we didn't have the game. I tore through the crates with even greater speed, and I think I was actually praying to God. Nothing else in the world mattered, I was determined that this orphaned child was going to have Katamari Damacy for Christmas. I was down to the last tote. My heart was growing heavy as I rummaged through to the bottom layer, when suddenly I saw four streaks of light blue. They struck my eyes like a strain of gold to a starving miner. I grabbed the four copies of the game and dashed back out, hoping that the elderly man and little boy were where I left them.
The little boy poked his head out from one side of the aisle and waved to me as I approached. A little out of breath, I handed him the game. His face lit up and he exclaimed, "Yeah, this is it!" as though he'd expected me to have the wrong one. The elderly black man thanked me, shook my hand, and wished me a merry Christmas before turning toward the checkout aisles at the front. As they walked away, the little boy turned back to me, smiled and waved bye.
This one delightful encounter with the pleasant, laid back elderly man and cheerful little boy gave me the energy I needed to put up with the remaining four hours of frazzled, frantic, irritable wealthy white parents and their 3-page long shopping lists of nothing but godawful gunmetal gray shooting games. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, indeed.
So it was about 8:00 or 9:00 P.M, and I was in the middle of an 11-hour shift that would be punctuated by a four hour break before I'd have to return at 5:00 AM. Needless to say, I was not in the highest of spirits, and was spending most of my time explaining to wild-eyed parents that no, we didn't have any PS2's or Xboxes, no I didn't know when we'd be getting them in, and no, I didn't know where they could find any. I was avoiding outright greeting anyone, which is actually a write-upable offense, and, eventually, find myself almost alone on the PS2 aisle. An elderly black man was surveying the games on the shelf, and nearby a young white boy, about 4 or 5, was shuffling through said games. I was going to ignore them, but my conscience mustered what little energy it had and I thought about the suffering this man must've had to endure in his early years, plus he was wearing the same kind of Kangol ivy hat that my grandpa used to wear, so I trudged over at the dismay of my legs and coughed up a lackluster "Is there anything I can help you find?"
The man replied with a smiling, "Oh, he's looking for something." Then the boy, who I had assumed wasn't with him, turned his attention to me and explained that he didn't know the title of what he was looking for, but he'd recognize the cover. He then began explaining in excited, garbled English, the mechanics of the game he was after. I listened with some small amusement to his lisped chatter, though I could make out very little and knew in my soul he was describing something horrible like American Chopper or Tak 2 Staff of Dreams. Suddenly, in the barrage of broken English, I understood one key phrase with perfect clarity, and it struck my brain like a bolt of lightning in the pitch darkness of my soul: "...and you roll and roll and roll and roll all over everything." My hunched shoulders snapped straight and my half-mast eyes shot wide open. I exclaimed, "Oh! Katamari Damacy!" as though I'd just solved a thousand year mystery.
With a sudden burst of vigor from the blue, I leapt over to the K section of the aisle only to find the "Katamari Damacy" file card with nothing in front of it. My heart sank. Since I started here, this child was only the second person to ask me for Katamari, and the first was a knowledgable 20-something fanboy. The only reasons I could think of that would explain how this good-natured elderly black man came to be guardian of this 4-year old white boy were tragic, and for the first time in my entire retail career, I could not bring myself to tell this poor boy that we didn't have the game he was looking for. I violated store policy and instructed the elderly black man to wait a couple of minutes while I checked the warehouse.
With mysterious energy from heaven flowing into my body, I dashed to the back and immediately began rummaging through totes of recently-arrived games. As the pile of totes diminished with no sign of Katamari, I started getting frantic. It would be unbearable if I had to go back out there and explain to them after making them wait that we didn't have the game. I tore through the crates with even greater speed, and I think I was actually praying to God. Nothing else in the world mattered, I was determined that this orphaned child was going to have Katamari Damacy for Christmas. I was down to the last tote. My heart was growing heavy as I rummaged through to the bottom layer, when suddenly I saw four streaks of light blue. They struck my eyes like a strain of gold to a starving miner. I grabbed the four copies of the game and dashed back out, hoping that the elderly man and little boy were where I left them.
The little boy poked his head out from one side of the aisle and waved to me as I approached. A little out of breath, I handed him the game. His face lit up and he exclaimed, "Yeah, this is it!" as though he'd expected me to have the wrong one. The elderly black man thanked me, shook my hand, and wished me a merry Christmas before turning toward the checkout aisles at the front. As they walked away, the little boy turned back to me, smiled and waved bye.
This one delightful encounter with the pleasant, laid back elderly man and cheerful little boy gave me the energy I needed to put up with the remaining four hours of frazzled, frantic, irritable wealthy white parents and their 3-page long shopping lists of nothing but godawful gunmetal gray shooting games. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, indeed.
