Oh.

My.

God.

That girl is gorgeous with a capital G—Gorgeous.

Her face—I wanna stare at it all day.

Her hair—It's the loveliest chestnut brown, and it falls down to the tops of her shoulders, and that style makes me melt! It's the perfect length! All women should wear their hair that short. It just looks so good.

Her body—Can't describe it without sounding like a pervert, but long as she's in shape, who cares about details like full hips or a skinny waist? That's bedroom stuff, which is all great and dandy and important to consider, but when I look at a woman, I'm looking for love.

I gotta go up to her. I gotta strike up conversation. That could be my future wife, and I can't let this chance slip up. Just think of what my kids would say: “Dad, why did you let Mom walk away even when you had the chance?” But they won't get to ask that because they won't be born!

Need to look myself over. Do I look good? Hair's in place, not sticking up. Nothing in my teeth. No random acne, thank god.

Everything checks out. Good! These mirror columns sure are handy. Now, to make my move...

“Hello there, miss, how are you doing today?”

“I'm doing good. How are you doing?”

“I'm doing wonderful.” Wonderful now that you're in my life. “Looking for something nice to wear? Have a special occasion coming up?”

“No, no special occasion. Just looking for new clothes. I've worn everything in my closet a thousand times already, so I'm overdue for a new look.”

No special occasion, huh? Know how else that translates? No upcoming dates, which means no boyfriend! I can turn things up a notch.

“If you don't mind me saying, I think that outfit right there would look great on you.” I point to a nearby mannequin, which is showing off a flower-patterned sundress. I'm lying when I say she'll look great in it. The truth is, she'll look gorgeous in it. More gorgeous than she is already.

My compliment gets a grin out of her, and my god, it's so radiant. I almost need sunglasses. There's nothing prettier than the smile of a woman.

This is good. This is going good. I've started building rapport, did a little flirting. No more dancing around. I can move in for the theft—the theft of her heart!

“Believe it or not, I know a place that sells some really good clothing. If you like, I can—”

“Excuse me, sir, do you work here?”

“...........”

Is he kidding me? Is this old man really kidding me? Do I work here? Do I work here?!

I'm wearing a black polo, tucked into my black slacks, which matched my black shoes, and stitched into my shirt is the logo for Kohl's, the business we're currently standing in. And not to mention the lanyard hanging from my neck, with, again, the store logo running allll up and down it, and hooked on it is a name badge with, get this, the store logo, my name, and the words ASSOCIATE SINCE 2018.

So.

Do I work here?!?!?!?

I'm about to snap. I'm gonna go postal. This brainless old man. This hollow-headed prune of a human being. This obtuse lummox, this smooth-brained mongoloid, this knuckle-dragging, shriveled up fossil of a neanderthal has the gall and vacant cranium capacity to stand here and ask if I work here?!?

How many times did his mother drop him on his head as an infant? What chemical compound did he rub into his eyeballs to make himself that blind? Did his doctor diagnose him with terminal stupidity and attempt to treat it with a lobotomy?

This can't be real. It should be impossible to even imagine. How is it that this old coot is perfectly capable of pulling up his jeans, tucking in his gray t-shirt, picking up his car keys, driving from his house onto the highway and into the parking lot, not kill anybody on the trip here, yet wonder if the man in the company uniform, with the company lanyard and name badge, isn't an employee.

It boggles the mind. I wanna scream at the top of my lungs. Just grab fistfuls of my hair and rip them clean off my scalp. This man is brain-dead. Unbelievably brain-dead. Unequivocally, incorrigibly, incomprehensibly beyond all of science's capacity to reason.

Stupid.

Stupid stupid stupid.

And I hate him.

This man is so stupid. He's too stupid to even realize how stupid he is! I should let him know. It would be the courteous thing to do. A charitable act, for the betterment of society. The more aware people are of their own stupidity, the more likely they are to think twice before opening their mouths to ask their stupid questions. Then the world will be an objectively better place.

“.........................................Yes, sir! What can I do for you?”

Of course, can't say what's on my mind. Technically, I can, but then I would technically lose my secondary source of income, and then I would technically be homeless, and that would technically suck.

And so, I must relent. Hide my inner rage and show this man the gleaming smile of an employee only too happy to bestow him with whatever assistance he desires. Because I'm just that much of a corporate sheep. Baa, baa.

“Do you know where the bathrooms are?”

No, I don't. Never found them, even after all these years. I either hold it or sneak a piss in the garden pots.

“If this follow this main aisle around to the right to Customer Service, that's where the bathrooms are.”

“Ah! Thank you, young man!”

What an idiot. He had to walk by Customer Service when he came in. Did he really wander to the back of the store looking for them?

To be fair, it is a load of donkey doody that the only bathrooms are at Customer Service. You could fit a shanty town in this building, but all the toilets are relegated to the one corner. And wouldn't you know it, I only ever have to go when I'm at the exact opposite corner of the store or up in the stockroom, on the second floor.

But that's all an aside. I just hope and pray that someday, when I'm that old man's age, that my IQ doesn't drop into the single digits.

That customer over in bedding's about to lose a few IQ points when that sign falls and cracks them on the head. Bloody kids. Running around, wrecking havoc. Watch your kids, lady, or don't have them in the first place!

Guess I better do something. If that lands on her, she's gonna start hollering and screaming, and management'll hear about it, then they'll yell at us, and I can't be bothered to hear more dumb guff I don't care about.

She's too far away for me to rush over to save her—not that I care enough to rush over—so I have to activate my Light Speed.

From my perspective, time freezes. That sign's just hovering there, and that woman's just standing there, oblivious to everything in the world but her phone. Wonder if she had her phone in hand when her baby daddy knocked her up.

Putting the bare minimum amount of effort to move my feet forward, I shuffle over to the sign. I even dig my hands into my pocket to prove how much I don't care to get to her. Run or walk or dolphin dive, it's all light speed. I could hit up Micky D's and that sign'll still be there. The only shame is that she can't see me slowly, carelessly saunter over to her. How mad would she be? On a scale of somewhat mad to extremely mad, my hope is that she would be extraordinarily mad.

I grab the sign and put it back. That's it, that's the extent of my rescue efforts. I debate on plucking the one kid up and setting him in front of a wall so that he smashes into it, but that'd lead to a whole host of issues, including the obviousness that I'm the culprit when I'm curled up on the floor, gripping my ribs because I'm laughing too damn hard.

I go back to where I was standing a moment ago (in my time) and deactivate my Light Speed. The sign doesn't clonk the woman on the head. Another soul saved.

She continues lethargically pushing her cart, not the tiniest whit aware that she was 1½ seconds from conking out and waking up as an amnesiac movie protagonist. You're welcome, you ungrateful wench. I swear. Helping people truly is a thankless job some days...

Now that the day is saved and there are no giant raisins to ask me stupid questions with obvious answers, time to return to my future wife and ask her when and where she'd like to have our wedding—

She's gone...

I breathe in.

And then I let out a long, long sigh.

“Of course she didn't stick around...”

Probably took her chance to skedaddle when the old man butt in. Wouldn't be a surprise if they were co-conspirators. He saw me hitting on her, realized he had to do something, and asked me something so blatantly, stupidly obvious that my internal fuming distracted me enough to not notice the lady slipping away. Unbelievable. What, he think I was a creep and he was a white knight galloping in to rescue the damsel in distress? Mind your own beeswax, grandpa. You've had your day in the sun to land you some nice babe, and now it's my turn. I just wanna be loved, too.

Whatever. It's nothing I'm not used to, and sulking isn't gonna win me sympathy from a passing dame. Just my manager's annoyance when they catch me standing, staring into space. Only one thing I can do—get back to stocking shelves.

I sigh, but it comes out more as a groan.

She wasn't the first girl I took a pass at today. The twelfth, actually. Or maybe she's only the eleventh. Yesterday, it was eight. The day before, nine—no, ten. Then the day before that, five. And so on and so forth, and you get the idea. My biggest day of fails was fifty-seven. That's fifty-seven members of the opposite sex who, in the span of 24 hours—more accurate to say 17, since that was when I was awake—rejected me.

Call me a playboy, but there's a sharp difference between me and a playboy, and that's that playboys are successful at the game. They put the moves on a girl, and she reciprocates. Another difference is that playboys are only in it to get their dicks wet.

Soooooo, yeah. For some reason unbeknownst to me, I can't get laid. Can't even get a date or a phone number, and I bet if I opened my arms to ask for a hug, the girl would scream in terror, flee, and call the police, and I'd have to change my name and claim asylum in a foreign country.

You'd think women'd be lining up to get with a true-blue superhero.

Better address the elephant in the room, and, no, I'm not talking about Ms. Oblivious to the World. I have superpowers, and I work in a department store.

There's no noble cause behind my place of employment. I'm not Superman, who works at Daily Planet so that he's first in the know of when crimes are going down. Organizing candles by scent doesn't exactly help with virtuous causes, unless your cause is to make the world a prettier place, in which case, good luck with that, because once customers get their grubby hands on the merchandise, that's it. Your efforts get tossed up like a tornado blew through.

My reason for working here is purely practical: I got bills to pay, so therefore I need a job to pay those bills. That's it. Doesn't matter where I work, so long as it's a paycheck.

That's the gist of why I'm here. There's a long version, but it's quite the tale from a few years back, and I don't have time to share it, being on the clock and all that. Don't wanna be in the midst of Earth's climatic battle against interdimensional invaders when some middle-aged broad asks me how much picture frames cost even though there's a price scanner literally right behind her.

“Oh, hello, hello...”

Pretty lady sighted: 6 o'clock. She's a stunner, and she's making her way over here. Once she's within earshot, I just need to give her my friendliest, most personable smile, ask her if she needs help with anything, and—

“Excuse me, sir. Do you know how much this costs?”

“.....”

I'm gonna kill myself.