My day started out very poorly. I woke up thirty minutes late because my alarm clock did not go off. This was very annoying to me because I am a certified clocksmith. Fixing clocks is my main passion in life, even though I have to work at a phone repair shop to pay my rent. It is a very rare job to have these days, and it requires a lot of patience. My alarm clock should have worked because I fixed the gears myself last week. I did not have time for breakfast, and then I stepped in a deep puddle on my way to the shop. My left sock was completely wet and cold inside my shoe. By the time I unlocked the front door of the shop, I was already very tired and did not want to talk to anyone.
The shop was quiet for the first hour. I sat behind the glass counter and organized some small screws by their size. I like sorting things because it makes sense to my brain. Big screws go in the big box, and small screws go in the small box. This is a simple rule that always works. On the shelf behind me sat a very expensive vintage camera. A customer named Mr. Henderson had brought it in to get the lens cleaned. He had already paid for the work, and the camera was just waiting for him to pick it up later in the afternoon. It was a beautiful piece of machinery, much like a good pocket watch.
Just before noon, a man and a woman walked into the shop. The woman was middle-aged, wearing a bright yellow jacket and very large sunglasses. The man looked tired and was carrying several shopping bags from other stores. The woman walked straight to the counter. She did not look at the phones on display. Instead, her eyes went right to the vintage camera on the shelf behind me. She pointed her finger at it and demanded that I show it to her immediately.
I told her very politely that the camera was not for sale. I explained that it belonged to another customer who had already paid for it to be cleaned. This seemed like a very simple concept to understand. If something belongs to one person, another person cannot buy it. But the woman did not care about my explanation. She told me that she had been looking for this exact model for her son’s birthday and that she was willing to pay cash right now. Her husband sighed loudly and looked at his watch, seeming very annoyed but choosing not to say anything to his wife because he was clearly used to her behavior.
I repeated my statement. I told her again that the camera was not the property of the store, so I had no legal right to sell it to her. The woman became very angry. She claimed that because the camera was sitting on a shelf in a retail store, it had to be for sale. She accused me of being lazy and not wanting to do my job. She said that she knew how these shops worked and that I was probably saving the camera for myself or a friend. Her voice was getting louder, and her face was turning red. Her husband took a step back and pretended to look at a phone case on the wall, completely ignoring the scene his wife was making.
The situation began to feel very chaotic. I am not good at dealing with people when they do not follow basic rules. My wet sock was still bothering me, and my head was starting to ache. The woman demanded to see the manager immediately. I reached for the walkie-talkie on my belt and called for my manager, Bob. I told him over the radio that we had an issue at the front counter. Bob replied that he would be right there, but I knew he was currently in the back alley taking out the giant cardboard recycling bins, which usually took him at least ten minutes.
While we waited, the woman did not stop talking. She insisted that she would get me fired for my terrible customer service. She then did something very unexpected. She reached her arm over the high glass counter, trying to grab the strap of the camera. I quickly stepped in front of the shelf to block her view. At that exact moment, a wild pigeon flew into the store through the front door, which had been left propped open to let in some fresh air.
The bird was terrified. It started flying in crazy circles around the small shop, flapping its wings loudly and hitting the ceiling lights. The sudden noise and movement made everyone jump. The woman shrieked and covered her head with her hands. Her husband dropped one of his shopping bags, and several plastic bottles rolled across the floor. This was a very confusing event that made it hard for me to focus on keeping the camera safe.
During the bird confusion, the woman saw her chance. She reached around my side and grabbed the camera strap, pulling the expensive device off the shelf. I saw the camera falling and my mind went into overdrive. If the camera hit the floor, the glass would break, and it would be ruined. I reached out my hands and managed to catch the camera just before it hit the hard linoleum. In doing so, my arm bumped into the woman’s arm, causing her to lose her balance. She stumbled backward into a display rack of phone chargers.
The metal rack tipped over with a loud crash. Dozens of plastic packages spilled everywhere. The woman landed on her hands and knees in the middle of the mess. Her expensive sunglasses flew off her face and slid across the floor, landing right under her husband’s foot. Before he realized what he was doing, he stepped forward to help her and felt a loud crunch beneath his shoe. He had completely crushed her glasses into tiny pieces of plastic.
The pigeon finally found the open door and flew back outside, leaving the shop very quiet except for the sound of the woman gasping. She looked down at her broken glasses and then up at her husband with pure fury. The husband looked down at the mess and simply told her that he had warned her about her behavior earlier. He did not help her up. Instead, he turned around and walked out of the store by himself, leaving her there on the floor.
The woman stood up, her face extremely red. She looked at me, then at the camera which was safely back in my hands, and then at the broken pieces of her glasses. She realized she had no allies left in the room. She did not say another word. She grabbed her purse and ran out of the door after her husband, leaving the knocked-over display rack exactly as it was.
Ten minutes later, the manager still had not arrived. I found out later that he had accidentally locked himself out of the building when the heavy metal back door slammed shut behind him, and he had to walk all the way around the block to get back in. I spent the next half hour picking up the phone chargers and putting them back on the rack. My day was still very bad, and my foot was still wet, but I felt a strong sense of satisfaction that the camera was safe. People who do not understand how rules work are very exhausting, and I was glad I did not have to talk to her anymore.
