Man Up! (8 page)

But I couldn’t really blame them. Deep down, I knew it was me who was the problem. As much as I loved my McDonald’s job, it was beginning to pale in comparison to the other jobs in the mall that, let’s face it, were much cooler, cleaner, and just plain less-greasy. Those who worked at the other shops—the “retail people”—seemed so happy. Of course they were happy—they smelled like samples of perfume, not pickles. They wore designer-logo-emblazoned cotton, not condiment-stained polyester. Hell, they drove Hondas! Man, they were living the life, and I wanted in on it.

The time had finally come for me to move on from McDonald’s, and I had my sights set on retail. The options in the mall were endless, so I decided to take a leap of faith by quitting my fast-food job altogether, certain I would soon land in greener pastures. I would have been thrilled to work at any of the retail shops: Bar-D-Western (a cowboy-themed clothing store owned by the parents of the Asian girl in my geometry class), the always refreshing Bath and Body Works, or the kiosk in the center of the mall that sold crystal figurines. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen two dozen crystal unicorns glittering in a mirrored display case beneath special halogen track lighting. And just imagine what kind of employee discount I would get on one of those mythical creatures. Fifty, 60 percent off ? Oh God!

The problem? Even though I printed my application on mint green paper and spritzed it lightly with my brother’s Drakkar Noir, not one store would hire me. Not a single one, not even with my inside connection to my Asian classmate’s family. I felt totally betrayed. I mean, she and I had been study buddies!

I almost gave up following what I thought was a particularly successful interview at Afterthoughts (a small boutique that sold bargain, last-minute accessories to complete an outfit—things like headbands, scrunchies, and bangles). I thought I had hit it out of the park at the interview. The manager was in her forties and had hair that went down to her knees. We had a lengthy conversation about how difficult it was to braid that much hair. She showed me her favorite brush. There was definite chemistry, and we had a connection, damn it! But, alas, I never heard back from her. It’s so sad, really. I mean, just imagine what I could have done with all that hair. Updos galore.

I was beginning to panic. Like a total idiot, I had already quit McDonald’s before I’d locked in a new job. Time was ticking by without cash flowing in. There was a certain lifestyle I had grown accustomed to, and it involved going to the Cineplex on a regular basis—hello, those Meg Ryan movies weren’t gonna watch themselves! And do you know how much the cinema charged for Whoppers and an extra large popcorn at the snack bar?!? Unreal! I needed a paycheck and I needed it fast. So there’s a lesson here, kids. If you have a steady job that you hate, don’t be impulsive and drop it like a hot apple pie right outta the deep fryer. Instead, play it cool, heed the advice of Wilson Phillips, and “Hold on for one more day…”

I found myself jobless, once again a civilian who had to pay for my Diet Coke. Tears filled my eyes after another endless, hungry day of handing out applications when I walked by a store that for some reason, I had never noticed before. I asked my mom about it when I got home.

“What’s Lane Bryant?”

“The plus-size store at the mall? Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason,” I replied, trying to hide my glee. A plus-sized clothing store for women? Was there a more perfect place in the entire world for me to work?!? I’d had a lifelong love affair with full-figured ladies. Delta Burke, Roseanne, Rosie, Oprah—these were my people! If anyone could see my retail potential and take a risk on me, it was gonna be a BBW (Big Beautiful Woman).

I was a tad nervous to apply, fearing that rejection from a big-boned gal would crush my spirit. But the dream of spending eight hours a day assisting large but fashionable gals accentuate their sexy curves and smartly camouflage “trouble areas” lit a fire under my equally plus-sized ass.

“I’m here to apply for a position,” I told the lady at the sales counter. She had really cool hair. It was a deep maroon hue with a platinum blonde streak serving as the surprising centerpiece of her bangs. This fantastic creation was longer in the front and kinda spiky in the back.
Very
ahead of its time. Sort of a Kate Gosselin backward mullet. The kind of hairdo that said,
Yeah, I work at the mall, but I have a gay cousin who does hair in the city.

She smiled. “Really? Well, come on back with me.”

Her name was Kend’rah and I liked her a lot. I never got the nerve to ask if she added the apostrophe herself, but I assumed she did. She deserved it. She was just about the coolest person I’d ever met. I yearned to be like her. I even considered, right then and there, changing my name to R’oss.

“Have you ever worked retail before?” she asked while playing with the coiled telephone-cord-like keychain around her wrist, a telltale sign of a retail manager.

I answered honestly. “No, but I shop a lot.”

She laughed. I laughed, too. This was the best interview I’d ever had. We chatted for over an hour and, by the time I left, I was officially the only male employee at the Lane Bryant in the Cascade Mall.

Just as I had imagined, working in retail was so much better than working in fast food. Case in point? When there were no customers at McDonald’s, I had to stay busy by scrubbing the thick layer of grease behind the deep fryer. “If there’s time to lean, there’s time to clean!”

But when there were no customers at Lane Bryant, I got to stay “busy” by gossiping with my coworkers and boss Kend’rah about the most recent episode of
Melrose Place
while we folded extra large pairs of stirrup pants. Sure, I didn’t get free nuggets at my new job, but I did get to rattle off priceless nuggets to customers like, “Honey, did you leave fifty pounds in the dressing room? Because you look
amazing
 !!!”

I was in my element, and I quickly became the number one salesperson in the entire store. No joke. Look it up. I’m sure it’s in their records somewhere. I was the best—the Wizard of Waistbands, the Sultan of Stretch Jeans, the Baron of Belts.

It was, by far, the best job I’d ever had. I loved every minute of it, all one and a half years that I worked there. I’d love to say that I’d return to my old position at the company one day, maybe live out my retirement as an assistant manager at the Palm Springs branch. But, dear reader, that will never happen. Ever. Why? Because it’s forbidden. Why? Because, dear reader, of what I’m about to tell you—a story I’ve only shared with one other person, my very best friend who I confessed to only moments after it happened. I haven’t even told my mother. She will read it for the first time with all of you. Mom, please sit down. The time has come for me to cleanse myself and undo these shackles of shame. Here we go…

We got a new assistant manager about a year into my career at Lane Bryant. Let’s call her Alexis. She was the quintessential bad girl: tall—like, eight feet tall—with a stern, tense face framed by the unsettling, partially grown-in stubble of her shaved eyebrows. While only twenty-one, she had the voice of a lifelong pack-a-day smoker (think Bea Arthur with a chest cold) and would tell long tales of growing up with her family on the Indian reservation near the local casino. She complained about anything and everything while twirling the creepy skull ring on her nicotine-stained finger.

She must’ve made at least three times what I did in her high-up managerial position, but for some reason she inevitably asked me at the end of every shift to drive her to the bar across the river. Alexis and I couldn’t have been more different, but I liked her, even though I knew she was trouble.

As we were closing down the store one night, I caught her putting some merchandise into her bag. “Just a little for me,” she said, laughing as if it was no biggie.

I didn’t dare say anything, knowing that (A) she was my boss and (B) she was stronger than me. I kept waiting for a blood-curdling alarm to go off as I walked out of the store that night next to Alexis and her bulging bag of concealed contraband, but nothing happened. Life just went on as usual.

A couple months later, I caught her stealing again. “Umm,” I gathered the courage to say, “aren’t you gonna get in trouble or something?”

“Please,” she huffed, “there’s so much crap here and they don’t keep track of anything. You should take stuff, too, if you want.”

As I retell this tale, I wish I had that famous DeLorean from
Back to the Future
so I could travel back in time. I’d drive right up to my younger self in the mall parking lot, roll down the window, and through a cloud of smoke yell, “Don’t do it! Don’t throw your whole life away!”

But back then I just wanted Alexis to like me. She was my superior, and she cursed even better than my dad’s friends.

“I don’t know. I mean, this is all girl’s stuff.”

Alexis reminded me, “You said that you liked those pajama bottoms with the gray stripes. They’re kinda manly. Totally unisex.”

She was right. They
could
look good on me, even if they were made to be worn by a soccer mom with a sweet tooth. They were a little manly. Maybe that was why they weren’t selling. I mean, they were already marked down 40 percent. Nobody would miss them, right? They can’t give these things away. I was kinda doing the company a favor!

“I guess they
could
be cute.” I was torn. I hadn’t purposely done anything this wrong since I was six years old at Expo ’86, when I deliberately stomped on a mustard packet on the ground, splattering the white jeans of a little girl in front of me in bright yellow. I don’t even know why I did it, but when that little girl burst into tears and her mother shot me a look of utter contempt, I felt so, so bad. Much like the mustard on her white jeans, the guilt of that moment has stayed with me forever.

With that feeling in mind, I knew stealing the pajamas was wrong, but it wasn’t going to result in anyone bursting into tears, right? This was kind of a victimless crime. Besides, Alexis did this kind of thing all the time, and nothing
ever
happened to her. Looking back, of course, I was clearly trying to justify it, but that’s what you do when you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing.

It was a stupid risk, the wrong thing to do, the kind of act my grandma would call “a bonehead move,” but I did it anyway. I slipped the PJs into my bag and walked out like nothing was wrong, just as I had seen Alexis do so many times before.

The funny thing is, I didn’t even really want those pajamas. I tried to wear them that night, but was too wrought with guilt. In an attempt to push the entire mess out of my mind, I balled them up and hid them in the bottom drawer of my dresser. But I knew they were there—I couldn’t forget them. They haunted me like an annoying tune that gets stuck in your head for days at a time, only this time the song was
Bad boy, bad boy, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when the PJ police come for you?

About a week later, I got a call to come in to work on my day off.
Awesome,
I thought,
I could use some extra hours.

When I arrived, my boss Kend’rah greeted me, looking less spunky than usual. Even her hair was flat today. I asked, “What’s wrong, honey?”

With a forced, sad smile, she replied, “There’s a man in back. He needs to see you right away.”

My heart sank. I didn’t know if I was more upset about what I was about to endure or the look of disappointment on Kend’rah’s face.

I walked slowly toward the back room and found a bald, stocky man in a dark blazer sitting among the empty cardboard boxes and hangers. “Please take a seat,” he said curtly while gesturing to the folding chair opposite him.

I sat. My knees shook. I knew what was coming.

He maintained steady, almost creepy eye contact while he introduced himself. “I’m with corporate, Ross. I run the theft department. I’m here for a couple reasons. First, I need you to know that Alexis was fired today. She’s been stealing.”

I nodded.

“And I want to ask you something,” he continued. “What would you say if I told you that we had video surveillance of you leaving this store with items that belonged to our company?”

I gulped.

“I need you to be honest with me, Ross.”

I felt like shit. I had
really
screwed up. This wasn’t me. I wasn’t the guy who got caught stealing things and had to sit across from scary bald guys and admit embarrassing mistakes. I was better than this. Yes, I had made the absolute wrong decision. The only thing to do now was to man up and admit it.

“I took a pair of pajamas. They’re in a drawer in my bedroom. I don’t know why. I’ve never done anything like this before and I’m so, so sorry.”

He let me leave without calling the authorities, but I had to return the pajamas. I also had to turn in my employee card and my official Lane Bryant name tag. It was like one of those scenes in a movie where they fire a rogue cop who’s crossed over to the dark side and he’s forced to hand in his badge and gun. Totally sad.

So, let me give you the one-line CliffNotes version of my confession: I was fired for stealing discount elastic-waist ladies’ pajamas from a store for plus-sized women. Does it get any lower than that? I didn’t just hit rock bottom, I hit rock pajama bottom.

I’ve lived with the shame of this pajama-clad skeleton in my closet for far too long. Forget the PJs. The real crime here—what I am most disappointed about—is the fact that I betrayed myself in order to seem cool. I went against my gut feeling, my gut that was twisting and turning in an attempt to tell me,
Don’t do this! Just because someone else got away with it doesn’t mean it’s okay! You know better than this!

I not only lost a job I loved that day, I lost my self-respect. And I have since vowed to make choices that ensure I never feel that way again.

Now that I’ve confessed, I don’t expect forgiveness. But I do hope, in the deepest depths of my heart, for two simple miracles: One, I hope my mother isn’t too disappointed in her “perfectest little angel face.” And, two, I hope someday that the fine people at Lane Bryant corporate could find in their hearts to wipe my record clean and maybe, just maybe, welcome me back into their corporate family with open arms.