Yesterday was the day before November full moon. I pedalled with a will for five miles to Goodwill for some useful second-hand goods. Wanted to purchase bodywear and kitchenware. Sleety water splashed under my tires. Rubbish sacks wrapped and guarded my rucksack full of books for reading at work. Furry hat and gloves warmed my head and hands in the cold damp.
After shopping around Goodwill for some forty minutes, finding good wear and good wares, a long-nosed manager nuzzled up to me (muzzle her!) and said: ‘Sir,’ by which she did not mean to uphold deference but policy maintenance. ‘Sir, no backpacks are allowed in our store. A sign says so right out front for everyone to read as they enter.’ She paused and walked a bit away, then returned, compensating in a motherly tone, ‘I know it’s hard for you to walk down the aisles with that on your back. We don't want you having to do that. Put it behind our front desk - that way you won’t have to carry it.’
So this rule existed to help me walk down the aisles? This rule existed to encourage me not to lift unnecessary weights? Better be frank with me and say you don't want me to have the ease of squirreling away your store's possessions in my pouch.
What she assumed was that I drove a car and could lock up my valuables whenever I went on errands. But my backpack was like my top dresser drawer and survival kit in one. It had everything I needed outside the home.
Balking at her insincerity, I turned my gaze away from her and ignored her, then casually walked to the cashier lady who says, ‘O, she caught you, did she?’
I hand her my pack. ‘Yeah. It’s just, my eyes aren't so good.’
‘O, I thought you were fine with your backpack. That's why I didn't say anything to you.’
I walk to the dressing room to try on shirts and slacks. The manager, not content with being insincere, decides to assuage her now guilty conscience and be even more insincere. So she says,
‘I bet that's a load off your back!’ As if to say, I bet by now you're glad we have this rule! See how we helped you today by exchanging your free will with our distrust!
More irked than before, I did not look her way or give any sign I had even heard her. I went into the dressing room and shut the door more firmly than I would usually. At this point, I was feeling physically warm. I took off some of my gear – then stuffed it down into my carry basket. It’s not as if I could put it in my backpack, not without going through Customs again.
Come check-out time, there was more Good Will to be enjoyed. My two smallest and cheapest items came without price tags. This problem was done away with by allowing me to share some of their work. Knowing her corporate instructions, the cashieress explained to me, ‘We can't sell you these until we get them priced. What we can do is hold them for you.’
Before explaining what this could mean, she pulled out some papers for me to fill in. There were lots of microscopic blank spaces for all my personal information, and at the end I received a detatched portion with Good Will across it and their contact phone. ‘In two days we'll have these items priced. Just call us first before you come back in!’
Bicycle five miles back in, you mean.
It took me another two minutes to find out what this preliminary phone-call was meant for. She finally admitted Yes to the following summary: ‘So you want me to phone you in case you haven't priced them by then?’
‘Give us a call’, she says. ‘We wanna make sure you know the price before you commit to buy.’ I redirect an inward snigger into my diaphragm – like repressing a hiccup. I knew each item was worth less than a dollar. Commit to buy. Why do you think I’m here at the cash register with my 10 dollars in cash?
This wasn't Walmart. This wasn't Best Buy. This wasn't Toys “R” Us. This was a second hand shop to save waste, curb poverty in society, and spread on earth peace, good will toward men. Why shouldn’t the joy multiply one by one and two by two and four by four? I was about to give them some of my money, after all. All that money and joy had trickled down to me. I stood there with an open hand, able to purchase second hand!
By this time, the long-nosed manager had reappeared and was still trying to get me to look at her and assuage her guilty conscience. Being a merry soul, I made two jokes for her about the items to-be-priced, one of which I called a “thumb massager” since I didn’t know its original function. All was forgiven. Everyone was laughing. It was good to love one's fellow human. It was good to be alive. No one here took Security or Control or Protocol seriously after all.
Now I’m all done, and all my unbreakable items are stowed and padded in sacks containing free newspaper. I head out in the freezing rain to my Bi-Ice-Ickle, fiddling with my bungee cords to pack everything down. But I stop up short. Where are my two winter hats and my gloves?
I run back in the store and approach the cashier lady, asking her if she’d seen my winter gear. I dig down in my backpack in front of her, yanking my hat and gloves out of my check-out bag and quickly uncrumpling and scanning my receipt. Three mystery items stare up strangely at me, each labeled Soft Linings. One item, two item, three items, jacking up my bill. I softly explain to her how my own belongings had got mixed up with the check-out items. I point at the receipt, showing her the mystery charges.
This brought Ms. Manage-Your-Burdens back to the front. She looked over my winter clothing, guessing that even a guy with a backpack wasn’t making all this up. And my Swiss boiled-wool mittens had I’m not from Goodwill written all over them. Why couldn’t she have just left me and my backpack alone? Controlfreaks make double the work for everybody. The whole thing was so absurd I started to laugh. ‘It looks like you just charged me for the clothes off my own back.’ I smiled, making it as forced as I could.
Instead of dealing with the matter herself, head manager went on to dishonour me and her employees by shoving the whole thing onto us. I was convinced the cashieress was about to be scapegoated - and already I had a rebuttle and rebuke worked out in my head. The underling then returned, shame-faced and head-bowed. I looked at her orangey-dyed hair, thin white face, tired eyes, withered hands. She admitted it was her mistake and the manager started motormouthing instructions at her, ignoring me for several minutes. I interrupted the manager in a firm voice, looking straight at her, ‘It’s an understandable mistake. I’d rather you deal with me face-to-face. I’m about to reload my backpack and have a ways to go home. Are you going to give me money back now please?’
They fiddled with the till for a long time, printing out several receipts. It was then, and only then, that I received My Goodwill, the truest act of good will in living memory.
‘Sir,’ (condescending again), ‘We can offer you store credit but no cash.’ Knowing I'll be back anyway for my to-be-priced items, and that I like Goodwill goods, I bit my tongue. I tried to throw a joke at the long-nosed manager:
‘I'll know from now on to throw all my winter gear into my shopping cart whenever I want store credit here!’
No laughter.
I looked at her then and said, ‘Some people carry life's load on their backs. It's up to you to lighten the load.’
