A regular customer was peering in the windows of the thrift store yesterday.
He's a neighborhood fixture. A bit of a scarecrow, he walks everywhere, and every day he brings us stuff he finds.
I ran out to give him my back copies of The Economist--his favorite magazine.
He handed me a stainless steel dog dish, with crud on the bottom. (Steel wool cleaned it right up.)
"How've you been?" I asked him.
"Oh, terrible, terrible," he said. "This has been terrible. I thought about killing myself, but I said to myself, 'You just have to be patient. This won't last forever.'"
"Oh, no!" I said. "We would miss you so much! This won't be forever---we're reopening in two weeks--June 1, and everyone will be so happy to see you.I can't hug you, but I can touch you with this dog dish."
I tapped his arm with with the dog dish.
I wish I'd hugged him.
I do.
I could have washed up in the mop room and changed into clean ("clean") clothes from the store.
Stripped Down
My coworkers are stripping the floor.
First time in years.
The store's floor-buffing machine is a dinosaur (above), so the guys are doing it by hand––with toxic chemical stripper, long-handled scrapers, and mops.
They don't keep apart. They don't wear masks. Or gloves.
They don't complain.
One guy told me the stripper was peeling his hands. We have gloves. (We have masks.) "It doesn't matter," he said.
Do I want to be here?
I do.
Waiting for us to reopen is literally one of the things keeping that regular customer alive.
I try to be careful.
He's a neighborhood fixture. A bit of a scarecrow, he walks everywhere, and every day he brings us stuff he finds.
I ran out to give him my back copies of The Economist--his favorite magazine.
He handed me a stainless steel dog dish, with crud on the bottom. (Steel wool cleaned it right up.)
"How've you been?" I asked him.
"Oh, terrible, terrible," he said. "This has been terrible. I thought about killing myself, but I said to myself, 'You just have to be patient. This won't last forever.'"
"Oh, no!" I said. "We would miss you so much! This won't be forever---we're reopening in two weeks--June 1, and everyone will be so happy to see you.I can't hug you, but I can touch you with this dog dish."
I tapped his arm with with the dog dish.
I wish I'd hugged him.
I do.
I could have washed up in the mop room and changed into clean ("clean") clothes from the store.
Anyway, I can see how this is going to go.
The neighborhood is crammed with people, many of them living rough. There's a tent city a mile away.
A volunteer told me he'd helped served 80 free lunches that day, down the street. "No one was wearing masks."
The neighborhood is crammed with people, many of them living rough. There's a tent city a mile away.
A volunteer told me he'd helped served 80 free lunches that day, down the street. "No one was wearing masks."
Stripped Down
First time in years.
The store's floor-buffing machine is a dinosaur (above), so the guys are doing it by hand––with toxic chemical stripper, long-handled scrapers, and mops.
They don't keep apart. They don't wear masks. Or gloves.
They don't complain.
One guy told me the stripper was peeling his hands. We have gloves. (We have masks.) "It doesn't matter," he said.
Do I want to be here?
I do.
Waiting for us to reopen is literally one of the things keeping that regular customer alive.
I try to be careful.
Please tell us that at least they have some fans going. What are they thinking?
ReplyDeleteMICHAEL. No fans. It's a challenge for me to enter into my coworkers' thinking...
ReplyDeleteI THINK it's an extension of poverty-thinking: "There's nothing to be done."
There's a strength in this---it's a relative of Acceptance--but when there IS something to be done, it can be killing. Literally.
What a touching story. The people who depend on your store and the daily interaction it provides will be so happy when it opens again. I'm wondering when our neighborhood thrift shops will reopen. Haven't seen any sign of it yet.
ReplyDeleteI love the look of that dinosaur floor-buffer, but I'm sure it's hell to use!
From my perspective, I have to remember that there are people who may not have been raised or worked where safety issues were discussed or acted upon. Or if they did question something they may have lost a job or thought it was just the way of the world.
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked with small manufacturers I was always amazed at how badly workers can be treated. Not Charles Dickens bad but still bad otherwise.
Kirsten