Thu Dec 26 2002
December 26th is Boxing Day. A day when people in Canada and Commonwealth nations don boxing gloves and go shopping for the best sales of the year. The gloves are to knock out competitors at Zellers, or Eaton's, or The Bay, because, you know, the crowds they can be troublesome otherwise.
So this is yet another yarn from Ye Old Roots File, this one appropriately concerns Boxing Day and my single-handed effort to ready my little store for the onslaught of embittered Vancouverites; their charm and humor left behind in their homes like so many tatters of Scotch-taped Christmas wrapping paper.
Being the naive fool that I was, and about 20 years old at the time, I put my dedicated mind to the task of actually going in to work on Christmas day. I worked at tearing down the garland and festive holiday trim to make the place ready for the unwashed hordes of Roots fanatics who seemed only to want to shop at our store this one day of the year.
The wise ready their stores the way one would prepare a slaughterhouse: a minimum of fixtures and furnishings since anything that can be trampled on will be. So insane are the crowds on Boxing Day that we hired a door guard to meter the number of shoppers allowed in at one time.
So there I was, 8am on Christmas morning, alone in my store, a day away from total shopper madness, the stereo blaring something other than holiday music. I actually enjoyed the alone-time, as I'm apt to do, and went around taking down the hot-glued on garland, and rearranging items to not be in red, white, and green patterns.
I was on a 6-foot high ladder when I could hear, above the music, the sound of someone tapping on the glass door with what could only have been a key or a wedding band. I didn't turn around, pretending that Depeche Mode drowned my senses.
The tapping persisted, this time in a sequence clearly designed to annoy anyone, and it sounded, as best as I can simulate, like this.
tink-tink-tink... tink-tink-tink-tink-tink-tink-tink... tink... tink... tink... tink... tink-tink-tink-tink-tink-tink-tink-tink-tink-tink-tink-tink...
My mind said aloud to all the characters it plays host to, "Fucking okay, okay already! Christ all-fucking-mighty, when I turn around and look, motherfucker had better be someone I know and care deeply for, or motherfucker's going to die!"
I turned. The tapper was a diminutive Chinese man, about 45, who smiled and waved to me. I knew he was waving for me to come down off the ladder and approach the door, but I smiled and waved back, pretending he was just a Christmas well-wisher; some lonesome soul trying to spread cheer to pathetic losers, like me, who worked Christmas day.
After turning my back to him again, the tapping continued until, finally, I came down off the ladder and addressed him through the glass of the huge front door.
"You open today?" he asked in a heavy Chinese accent.
I scanned down the mall. He was not, to my surprise, the only would-be shopper wandering about. There were maybe two others. The mall was dark. Dark like it would be if there'd been a power outage and backup generator lights came on. Every other store around me was pitch black and very obviously closed for the holiday.
"No, sir, we are not open." I said, shouting over the music.
"You open tomorrow?" he asked, hopeful.
"Yes! Ten o'clock," I said, pointing to my watch like an idiot.
"I can come in now... buy something now?"
"No, sir, you may not," all the while, Depeche Mode was instructing me to reach out and touch faith.
"Maybe... quick look around? I come back tomorrow and buy. I promise."
"No sir, you cannot come in. We are closed today."
"But... you there, I'm here. Maybe I buy something. What if I buy full price?" He probably thought this was tempting to me, a salaried store manager, who didn't even get the benefit of spiffs or commissions.
I was amused, impressed, and annoyed by his tenacity. This man was clearly born to bargain hunt. I am not his kind of people at all. I buy full price if I can, or at premiums over retail if I'm convinced the item is truly exceptional. We're all different this way, I suppose.
"I'm sorry. Very busy now. Getting store ready. Tomorrow big, big sale. You come back early tomorrow. Be first in line. You get good deal. Very good deal!"
I tended to pick up broken English whenever I talked to foreigners.
Finally, exhausted by the effort, he took a seat on the bench directly outside the store and sat there, the way a kid would sit when waiting to be called into the game, elbows perched on knees, head tilted up to watch my every move.
Before long a crowd of about five people milled outside the store. I concluded these must all be people who open their gifts on Christmas eve, making Christmas day an utter wasteland of boredom for them. They must rise at 6am and think, "what to do... what to do..."
Finally, I opened the door to transport boxes of decorations to our basement storage.
One woman, sucking her coffee through its lid, turned and said, "What a life you have! Don't you have something better to do on Christmas day?" and she laughed while her friend just nodded and pursed her lips at me as if to agree that my life was clearly pathetic.