2004, Georgia

By Gina Bastone

Christmas in Georgia is not magical or pretty. The weather and the landscape just look dead, and snow never comes in December, if it comes at all. Grass is brown and patchy, the leafless trees sag under gray skies.

By the time I was in college, Christmas didn’t seem particularly special. I would look forward to seeing my family, catching up with old high-school friends, and getting a break from homework and papers. But the curiosity and joy of my childhood were gone, and Christmas in my hometown was a little mundane. The only thing to do there in December is shop.

My freshman year, I took a job at Bath and Body Works, and somehow, I maintained a seasonal position almost every Christmas and summer.

By my senior year, I knew exactly what to expect. I would be asked to work Christmas Eve, and I would say yes because I don’t know how to say no. I would stand for hours and hours, and say the same things over again.

“Happy Holidays.” “Would you like to buy a gift box?” “Gift cards are always a good choice.” “Warm Vanilla Sugar is one of our most popular fragrances.”

I would pretend it was a joy to search the back room for the last bottle of Sweet Pea body cream. I would fantasize about Congress passing a law requiring every American to work a December Saturday at a mall, just so they would understand the tortures of holiday retail.

The Saturday before Christmas is always the worst, and the store prepares for it. My senior year, I was stuck with the closing shift. The store closed at 10, and we would have to clean up and balance the registers before leaving. If customers stayed past closing, I wouldn’t get home until 11:30 or midnight.

Around 9, we were all looking around the store, getting a good idea of how many customers were still shopping. There were only a few left, and Christine, the manager on duty, said we could possibly close early. I was at the cash register, and a woman came up and handed me a bottle of Lay It On Thick body lotion, one of the signature products in the spa collection.

I started scanning her items, and she looked at the total on the register screen. She let out a heavy sigh and asked me about the total. I went through each item and told her the prices.

She grabbed the spa lotion and told me she thought the price was $5.50, not $15.50. I told her I was sorry, but that is how much it cost. She told me she didn’t want it, so I deleted the item.

I thought she might have been trying to get me to reduce the price. People always complained to me that the prices were too high, and I always wanted to tell them that there was nothing I could do as a lowly sales associate. Instead, I would smile and show them cheaper products. So I figured that this woman was one of those customers who didn’t like the prices, not that I can really blame her - $15.50 is too much for lotion.

I finished ringing up her items, swiped her credit card, and gave it back to her. I wasn’t thinking in that moment. If I was thinking at all, I was thinking about how my feet hurt from standing all day and how much I hated the pop Christmas songs that played over and over again.

When I handed her the credit card slip to sign, she told me she didn’t want any of it; she wanted her money back. She gave the slip back to me, and I stared at her blankly for a minute, entirely confused as to why she wanted to cancel. I thought that maybe it had something to do with the expensive lotion. When she told me again that she wanted her money back, I told her to wait a moment while I found the manager.

Christine took care of it right away with a big smile, and after the woman left, she pulled me aside and asked me why I thought the woman decided to cancel her purchase. I told her I had no idea.

Christine said it was because I slid the credit card across the counter instead of handing it to her, and the woman took it as a sign of disrespect. Christine knew that I didn’t do this on purpose - that I just wasn’t thinking. She told me to be careful with people’s credit cards and to always place the cards back in their hands.

There was something else that was never said but that I understood. The customer was black, and I was white.

After Christine went back to the counter, I wanted to melt into the floor, to disappear, to run away from embarrassment. I don’t remember anything else I did that night. I probably swept the store, did inventory, and restocked shelves, just going through the motions. All I wanted to do was go home and forget the entire day.

But as I was driving, I thought of the customer as a person. She seemed to be in her 50s or 60s, and she grew up in the South during the Civil Rights movement, when it was ugly place. And every time someone showed her disrespect, she was powerless to do anything about it. Now, 40 years later, she could do something; she could have a say.

But it was still ugly. I never meant anything by it. I was drained. I had been helping people all day, listening to them complain and take their shopping frustrations out on me. I was tired of smiling and being nice to people who were not nice in return. I was thinking only of myself, and maybe she was too.

We both became ugly and desolate. When I made it home, I sat in the parked car, staring at the colored lights on the house, wishing Christmas could be pretty and magical again.

Gina Bastone is a freelance writer and editor living in Austin, Texas. She was tempted to take a temporary retail job this Christmas but decided to avoid the mall entirely.

Posted by Common Ties on Monday, December 17th, 2007 | Email This Post

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