Mr. Hazy was the first customer I got to know at the store - certainly the first name I learned. Like anywhere else, the first people I learned at the video store were the complete nightmares and the really nice ones (we have lots of normal customers; I just don't need to write about them) but Mr. Hazy was an exception to that rule. I learned him first simply because he was at the video store all the frigging time. Like Mr. Buddy, he's spent literally thousands of dollars in rentals. He's like clockwork - in, six hardcore porn videos and then back again within a day or at most two. He does have to stagger his schedule a bit - Wednesdays and Fridays are new porn days and he can't miss those, so it's tough to fall into a strict two-day rhythm what with these darn seven day weeks we insist on keeping.

Besides, sometimes he gets through six videos in a day just fine.

That six videos in a day thing used to astonish me - it seemed superhuman - but then I got clued into the fact that a lot of the heavy renters are doing a lot of fast-forwarding. They have to burn a lot of video to get to what they want.

At least I hope to God that's what they're doing. How could you spend twelve hours a day masturbating? Wouldn't you get bored? Would calluses eventually become a problem? Some of our six-a-day customers, obviously, are just pirating our tapes, but not all of them. I know. Trust me.

I don't know why five or six videos a day creep me out but not, say, three. Why should six solid hours a day of masturbation be a reasonable amount of time? I have no idea. It's something internal that I can't seem to logic away: I have no problem with three or four hardcore pornographic videos a day, but five or six is excessive. Perhaps I shouldn't have children.

Anyway, Mr. Hazy is definitely not pirating. As I mentioned, Wednesday and Friday are New Porn Days and he has to hit them because he has seen all of our other straight videos. I'll type that again: He has seen all of our straight videos. Try though we do to rotate the stock, we just can't keep up.

That, my friends, is why I feel comfortable using the phrase "porn addiction".

Mr. Hazy isn't the only one that's finished off the store. There are several customers that have seen everything we carry, or at least everything that floats their particular boats. That's why I loathe New Porn Days. We don't get the new stock out until at least 4 or 5 o' clock at the earliest - sometimes we don't even receive the shipment until then - but people start calling at about 10 in the morning and the frequency of the calls and intensity of the whining only increase as the day goes on. (Mr. Hazy, to his credit knows the system and doesn't show up until 4 or 5.)

People want to paw through the new boxes. The want us to bring them over to the counter so they can stare at them. They want us to read off the new titles, never mind the woman with the three small children standing at the counter. They want to see and touch and rent the new tapes, and they want them NOW.

I haven't quite pegged exactly why people get so frantic over New Porn Day, or why it's so important to rent the new movies *first*. I think part of it is that, yeah, they've seen everything and here's a new shipment of new bodies and new fucking and another shot at or variation of whatever they're looking for, but I also think it has something to do with the firstness of it. I think some of them get off on knowing that they are the first to whack off to that particular tape. I don't think they care about being the only one, but there does seem to be something about being the first one. "Don't rent it to anybody else," they'll scream into the phone, "I'm on my way!"

Every week or two, there's a new title in the gay section that everyone wants, and we'll start getting calls for it days ahead of time. People call, they beg, they bitch, they try to put it on the reserve list for days in a row. We do our best. The thing is, the movie is hot for two weeks and then forget it - only the poor stragglers who missed the first time want it and then it slowly fades away. It seems simple to figure out that if you just held off for a few days and got yourself a week or two behind the cycle, you could rent the almost-new-but-no-longer-hot releases at your leisure and without all the heartache, but that's not what people want. They want the newest.

I sometimes wonder if it's something akin to the virginity thing or if my renters are, deep down, just as creeped out by some of their fellow renters as I am. If so, I wish they'd think about that for a minute before turning in a spooged out tape that's still stopped in the middle at the exact spot where they came.

Anyway, Mr. Hazy seems to be more about the novelty than the firstness. New Porn Day is actually the easiest day to deal with Mr. Hazy, because as long as he's getting six new videos he's happy. When he's really selecting videos, we have to be careful. Mr. Hazy has terrible eyesight and can't actually read the tags, so he doesn't always know what he's renting. He just finds a box that he likes and pulls the tag hanging underneath. Usually that's fine, but our customers, as a rule, do not hold degrees in library science. They'll pick up handfuls of tags and then just stick them back under any old movie, or they'll wander around with boxes in their hands, deep in Porn Trance. As a new box catches their eyes, they'll pick it up and put the old box in its place, leaving us with a daisy chain of misplaced boxes to untangle. We catch and fix stuff as best we can, but we're only human. Mr. Hazy doesn't check the title on the tag against the title on the box because he can't, so sometimes what he has is just a random collection of movies for us to pull.

Porn hits a childlike, needy place in many (if not most) of our renters. They were promised a treat and they want it now and if it's already been given away to one of the other kids or not quite the right flavor some of the guys look like they're going to burst right into tears. Mr. Hazy doesn't look like he's going to cry, but he gets really, really pissed if one of his (six!) rentals for the evening turns out to be the wrong one, and he can really make a stink.

Complicating the problem is the fact that we have several regulars who try to take dirtbag advantage of the fact that we don't make customers pay for incorrect videos. Suddenly we'll see a sudden upswing in a customer getting the "wrong" videos and it's time to put a note on the guy's account and doublecheck every single frigging thing he checks out every single time so he knows we're on to him.

Mr. Hazy was the first customer I blew my cool with - the only one who's really gotten me angry enough to show it, actually. He'd already come in several times on my watch and turned in the "wrong" movies and this time he said that something like four of the six were wrong and he shouldn't have to pay for them and on top of that he started yelling at me for whoever had so screwed up his rental.

I pointed out that he had a suspiciously high incident of "clerk mistakes" and he said he hadn't done that in weeks and it ended with me putting each new tape in his face and saying "Is this the correct tape?" before slamming it onto the counter. My fellow clerk Jonathan, who knew that I don't drink or smoke, suggested I take a break and have a beer and a cigarette.

Casey later theorized that Mr. Hazy simply couldn't read, which made me go easier on him and try to feel more charitable, though by then we were sworn enemies. Actually, as I said, he's simply visually impaired and too vain - or something - to wear his eyeglasses. Which is an interesting lesson in vanity, I think. He didn't want us to know he needs glasses, so one of us assumed he was a lying cheating dirtbag and another assumed he was illiterate. If he'd just said he had sight problems in the first place, we'd have put a note on his file and given him all the extra help he needed. Now we know, and we do.

We had a staff meeting this Monday night. Meetings start, of course, after we close, which is 11 pm. This one went until 1:30 (we get time and a half and pizza. Whee!) and of course I was Tuesday morning's opener.

The meeting actually went very well. It's a good, fun crew right now so everyone was pretty cheerful about it, and it looks like we might actually get a workable DVD storage system.

I just thought I'd mention it because we spent a good 15 minutes discussing how publicly a guy has to be masturbating before we can bust him. Obviously, if he whips it out we call the police. Hands down the front of his sweatpants is at least a visit from the Voice of God mike, and a call to the police if we feel like it. (Almost all whackers wear sweatpants. Some of the clerks argue that it's just a symptom of having given up on the rules of society, but I think it's simply the easy access.)

Then we got into grayer areas. Specifically, guys who masturbate through their pockets. The evening shift is being plagued by a regular who gropes himself through his khakis. We actually had a discussion on how actively a guy's hand has to be in his pocket before we should bust him. We decided on a quick blast from the call button, which makes a piercing beep, or a pointed "Everything OK down there?" on the Voice of God mike just to let him know we're keeping an eye on him.

I can't believe we actually spent that much time and energy giving the benefit of the doubt to jerkers. I can't believe we're all actually working from a position of not embarassing these guys. I don't want to embarrass the pocket-whackers either, but why? We all know the rules.

So just as a quick refresher, I'll mention this: While it is perfectly healthy to touch yourself in the privacy of your own home, with special friends, or in special clubs that I don't want to know about so please for the love of God do not e-mail me about them, IT IS NEVER, EVER OKAY TO MASTURBATE IN PUBLIC.

Also it would be nice if you wouldn't crumple up trash and stuff it under our computer monitors.

Thank you.

I had a pretty good morning this morning. I'm in the good swing of my porn emotional sine wave, where everything is hilarious instead of depressing. Actually, it's not quite a sine wave - I spend a fair amount of time in numb flatlining mode where nothing even registers. And there are exceptions: There's a Black Man in My Wife's Ass! always breaks me up no matter how bad a day I'm having. [Not all the titles can always do that. On bad days, Whose Pussy Is This? is a faintly disturbing illustration of sexual domination politics, since I know the proper answer is a breathy "It's yours!" rather than "It's mine, dickhead!" On good days, though, it's a particularly entertaining glimpse into the Lost and Found office.]

Thursdays are usually quiet, and today was definitely slow-paced, but I did have a pretty good stream of semi-regulars.

Mr. Moustache came in with another short stack of porn. I feel bad for Mr. Moustache, and I'm not sure if I should (or could) intervene. He's one of the guys who, I'm guessing, rents porn because he has a little trouble with finding actual women. In my experience most, though by no means all, porn renters fall into one of four major types:

1. Chippers - Chippers by definition aren't regulars. They stop by once to pick up stuff for a party, maybe again six months later when they're a little drunk after a Cubs game. Either they don't watch much porn or they get it off the Internet. Either way, I don't see 'em much.

2. Normal, Healthy Porn Renters - These make up the vast majority of my renters. They come in a little more often than the chippers, but not so much that it seems to be making up a major part of their lives. NHPRs may or may not be married or dating someone - the porn is an occasional supplement to a normal sex life with normal ups and downs.

3. Substituters - These are the guys, both straight and gay, who appear to be renting porn in lieu of having sex with other people. Sometimes it's due to a reclusive or difficult personality, sometimes to, uh, nontraditionally handsome looks. Obviously I can only make an educated guess as to whether someone is an NHPR or a substituter, but sometimes I feel like I'm making a damn good guess. It's usually based on rental frequency, the attitude of the guy returning the tapes (Substituters tend to be the most defensive) and a few other personal cues.

4. Addicts - Yup, addicts. Anyone who routinely spends spends six or more hours a day watching porn. Yes, it's an arbitrary number, but I think I'm being pretty damn reasonable. We're talking about a third of their waking lives here. Sure, there are grey areas and extenuating circumstances. That doesn't mean there aren't also addicts.

Anyway, Mr. Moustache seems to be a substituter. The thing is, he seems to be an OK guy. I think the only reason he's in the position of substituting is that the moustache in question is a huge, revolting 70's porn moustache. It's just terrible. I'm not sure what effect he thinks he's pulling off, but that can't be it. I wish I could just tell him - if he dropped the 'stache I'm pretty sure he'd do a little better with the ladies. But he clearly likes his moustache and it's not my place and, hell, as it is he's a good customer.

My next regular to come in was Mr. Smooth. Mr. Smooth always, always hits on me. He says one or two generally friendly things, works in either a compliment or an attempt at a double entendre, then asks what time I get off work or assures me that he'll see me later or any other traditional post-hitting-on parting remark. He always glances at me over his shoulder as he walks away and gives me the sly, smug smile of a man who has just done very well for himself.

Today there was a note on his file from one of the other female clerks about how he always hits on her. I was relieved that I wasn't the only one receiving Mr. Smooth's attention, but I'll admit I was also faintly disappointed at the discovery that I have no special allure. Ah, well.

Mr. God came in a little later. He wouldn't be a particularly distinctive renter if it weren't for the huge button he always wears, which I think is homemade:

GOD IS.
IN FULL CONTROL

I am fascinated by the quirky punctuation and always wonder if it was intentional and, if so, what that means.

Mr. God always rents hardcore porn, and it's hard to keep myself from having a knee-jerk snotty reaction to that. If he's so pious, why is he renting Freaks, Hos and Flows? Which would be a good point on my part if it weren't so hypocritical. One of my beefs with traditional Christianity is that most sects treat sex as a dirty or sinful thing. I like the fact that say, Taoism, treats sex as not only good but sacred. Why the hell can't God be. In full control and enjoy a little porn? I should fully support that. But still, my initial reaction is always a superior internal snort at the juxtaposition of the button with a bag full of Up and Cummers. Maybe I should get some sort of shock collar.

Mr. Diamond came in later, and I had a revelation. Mr. Diamond likes to rent the new releases upstairs in the general release section.He never has a new release in mind, he always just asks what's new and then wants to know what they're about. He always comes to the counter and asks what the new releases are even though they're posted on a sign, and he always asks me to show him which boxes those are even though, of course, the titles are on the boxes. Well, a lot of people don't like to find things for themselves and he usually comes in when it's pretty quiet so it's not really a problem. It wasn't until Zoolander was released a few months ago that I realized he couldn't keep up with me when I pointed to the new releases too quickly and, more tellingly, when looking for Zoolander Mr. Diamond hadn't seemed to notice the giant row of bright green and white boxes that said "Zoolander" across the front.

Mr. Diamond could not read.

I became a model clerkly compassion. I did my best to help him out without letting him know that I'd twigged to his secret. I put a discreet note on his file so the other clerks would help him out and avoid recommending new releases with subtitles. I admired the fact that he covered so well, that he'd risen to the point of being able to afford his diamond without being able to read. I wondered what his life was like and was quietly proud of myself for being such a terrific person as to help him without embarrassing him.

Anyway, I'm an idiot because today while I went back to the counter to help with a printer jam he read a box perfectly well on his own. Turns out he doesn't like to use his glasses either. I can't believe I've done that twice now. Anyway, his new releases were all checked out, so I suggested Lantana and sent him on his way. I hope he likes it; it'll make me feel better.

It occurs to me that this entry's title actually fits my own comeuppance for being so smug about what a swell gal I was being to Mr. Diamond scant days after remembering that I'd made a literacy/myopia mistake with Mr. Hazy, but I'd actually intended it for another incident.

A man came in today and a note popped up on his file: "This charmer shoved his tapes on the counter in front of the disabled guy who wasn't getting out of his way fast enough."

The man is screwed for life at our store and he doesn't even know it. No, we won't be deliberately mean to him or short change him or anything like that. But we also won't cut him a break on late fees or give him the benefit of the doubt on damage claims or go out of our way to help him out, which we frequently do.

Clerk Karma happens more for our customers than people think, and it's odd how far-reaching, if minor, the effects can be. Even the highest management will take a note into an account. A fee on an account with a note that says "This guy admits it was his fault but he was really cool about it." usually gets reduced by the Powers that Be. "This guy screamed at me for 20 minutes." is unlikely to get the same friendly reprieve.

I like it. We're not penalizing the jerks so much as rewarding the good, and it's comforting to know that life sometimes works that way, even if it's on a small scale. And of course, many small scales I don't know about may be adding up all over town.

We help people out as often as we doom them. A simple "Good guy" or "She's really nice" can invisibly smooth a customer's rental paths for months to come, even if it just means a succession of especially friendly clerks.

I wonder if our customers ever think about the fact that the hand that helps balance out the scales of the universe may have just landed in a wad of their semen.

My friend Joe used to be a counselor. He wasn't a psychiatrist, but the counseling was of that nature - sometimes pretty heavy stuff. One of the rules was that if he saw one of the people he was working with out on the street, he wasn't allowed to show recognition unless they greeted him first. It was a small city and being greeted by the counselor could mean that suddenly everybody knew you had problems.

I sometimes feel like that. Our store is very much a neighborhood store, and I see my regulars out all the time. I try not to recognize them until they acknowledge me. I used to automatically smile and say hi and most people were fine with that, but it did make a few people uncomfortable.

I saw two regulars out of the store last week. Monday was the most startling: I was heading to my theater for a show and suddenly Mr. Buddy leaned out the window of the restaurant next door. It took everything I had to keep from doing a take. I said hi and hotfooted it on my way without telling him where I was going. Mr. Buddy is harmless, but for some reason the thought of him seeing my show weirded me out to no end.

Over the weekend I ran into Mr. Dreadlocks. We'd come to the same peace march. I hadn't seen Mr. Dreadlocks in months - he finally did something weird or upsetting enough that the general manager cancelled his account. (I don't know what, and I feel like if I hit the point where I care enough to ask I've crossed an important line.) I didn't end up talking to Mr. Dreadlocks. We'd always gotten along just fine, but in this case I didn't know what to say. I didn't know why he'd had his account cancelled or under what circumstances he was asked not to come back; a cheerful howyadoin might not have been appropriate.

It's hard not to wonder. Sure, he was creepy, but we have plenty of creepy people in the store. If creepy got you cancelled, we'd be out of business. I'm guessing the way he fetishized the tapes it was either a lube or tampering issue. On the other hand, he was really, really into charging small amounts on his American Express card. Three or more $3.69 rentals a day, charged separately an hour or two apart from each other. This was a pain in the ass for the store - credit card transactions under $10.00 can actually lose us money - and we couldn't figure out if it was just a side effect of the fetish or if he was trying to work some angle or what.

At any rate, Mr. Dreadlocks, already a little bit crazy and a little bit sleazy, did something crazy or sleazy or maybe just irritating enough that he can't rent our movies anymore.

He was ahead of me in the march, so I couldn't read the sign he was carrying for a while. My group was a little faster paced than his, and during the course of the march we passed him. I couldn't resist - I had to glance over my shoulder and see his sign.

It was yellow and plastic, with blue cursive writing. It was a sign advertising another, completely different event. For the summer of 2000.

I think I'm going to miss him.

Arrrrggghhh.

I was having a lovely morning, right up until the end. Tuesday openers are very slow and I've grown to like them. I get my checklist of clerkly tasks done early and then, except for a very occasional customer, the morning is pretty much mine. It's not a bad way to ease into the day.

Today was going just swell. A little cleaning, a little introspection, and all quiet except for a regular or two.

He came in around 9:30. He was a big guy, dressed in baggy clothes, and he looked like he was either going to ask for an application or how you get a membership. (Correct on membership.) Lots of people come in in baggy clothes looking like they're going to ask for an application or a membership, and most of them do. What made this guy distinctive was his hair.

I'll go ahead and admit right off, I am not a fan of white-boy dreadlocks. Someone else can make the arguments about whether it's appropriating or appreciating someone else's culture; I just think they look silly.

This guy had gone one better: He had made an attempt at white-boy cornrows, but apparently hadn't felt like waiting for his hair to grow out long enough to do the braiding. Instead he'd had it cut very short, then shaved little trenches in it. It was an interesting solution, but not an effective one. From far away it looked like he might maybe sort of have cornrows if I squinted, but once he got within ten feet of me it was just sort of sad.

The requirements for membership were a little stringent for him, so he said he'd look around while he thought about it. He looked around downstairs for awhile, then left.

He came back about an hour later and headed straight downstairs. Someone who leaves and then comes back like that is almost always in league with Satan, so I glued myself to the monitor.

Something was up. He was pacing around, looking at boxes, checking out the cameras (though not as thoroughly as he might have) and in general becoming the living embodiment of the word "furtive".

He started tugging at his shirt.

I didn't know if he was going to whack off or stuff a box under it, but I didn't much care: I was not having it. Tony the beat cop had stopped in to say hi and check up a little earlier, so I knew he must be on the block. I gave him a call and asked him to stop by. I figured Tony doing a quick sweep would be enough to clear the guy out.

Seconds later, I put in a slightly more urgent call to Tony: The whacking had begun.

I had had enough. Normally I'll give someone a call on the Voice of God Mike and tell them to cool it, but screw that - the guy was beating off in my store. Fuck him.

Tony agreed. He said to call 911 and not let Bad Hair know anything was up. Done deal.

It felt weird to call 911 about a masturbator - I had visions of fires and floods and children in danger being put on hold as I said "Yeah, I have a clear view of him on the security camera..." and thought about how not an emergency the situation was.

But 911 did not mind. I gave the dispatcher a description of the guy and our store location again and she said that police were already on the block and on their way.

A bizarre, disgusting race was now underway - would the police get there before he finished?

Bad Hair whacked away, then looked over his shoulder. Jesus, was he finished or had he been disturbed?

He started upstairs. Fuck! I came around the counter so I could follow him out and show the police which way he'd gone.

Bad Hair started for the front door - dammit! - and actually lit up a cigarette as he went. Now there's an "Alive with Pleasure" ad.

Fuck, he'd hit the front door. I charged forward to catch up and see if he was going to duck into an alleyway... and then the firm, disgusted hand of the Law landed on his shoulder. Tony and two other officers had made it just in time.

"This him, Ali?"

"Yeah," I said, "I've got him on tape."

And then Bad Man with Bad Hair was shoved (not so hard as to cause injury, but firmly enough to be satifying) up aginst the outside of the store and cuffed while the officers did a very effective combination of questioning and shaming.

Then they took him away.

I signed a complaint, pulled the security tape, and said hell yes I'd show up for any court date they wanted to give me. Vengeful? Perhaps, but it was also very satisfying.

As effective as the Voice of God mike is at sending whackers skittering back upstairs, I have had enough. Why should I let them get away with masturbating in public, or for that matter almost get away with it and think that they can come back later and try it again?

Jesus, public masturbation is a taboo you learn about when you're four years old - how do these grown adult fuckos drop it so easily? I have more respect for the dirtbags who try to steal boxes. At least they're planning to go jerk themselves in private.

There's a piece of equipment in our storage area. I'm fascinated with it because printed across the base are the words "IMPULSE SEALER". It is, of course, for sealing off items that have been newly shrink-wrapped, but lately I've been pretending it's not and it's become an increasingly large part of my behind-the-counter fantasy life. There are many, many people who need to have their impulses sealed, and for some reason they all end up at my store.

No more warnings. From now on whackers will be referred directly to the police.

Last edited by Ali Davis on 10-15-2002 at 04:01 PM

We've had an interesting development. I knew one was coming because a sign appeared at the store this weekend to the effect that all four locations would be closing early Wednesday for a special meeting.

This would be the Wednesday in question, or at least it was when the meeting started.

We all knew something was up because meetings are usually held on a store-by-store basis. Nobody could ever remember having a giant summit meeting before.

No one would tell us anything. Well, actually the manager and assistant manager of our branch told us that they hated the fact that they couldn't tell us anything, and they thought it was a suckola way to do business. They were correct.

It always amazes me when upper power echelons in a company tell staff that something's up but they can't know what yet and then are shocked - shocked! - when rumors start flying. Well, what did they think? You can't play "I've got a secret" and expect people to cheerfully play along when you have the power to fire them. If there's no information coming down from above, The People will use their best guesses to create information of their own.

In this case, it was a Big Deal that had Lots of Points to Work out and yeah, yeah, nothing could be said until everyone was absolutely sure, and I understand that. That said, I hope management understands why rumors were flying. I was remarkably successful, minutes before the meeting, in maliciously spreading the rumor that we had a new dress code involving orange jumpsuits.

Anyway, to make a long story short, Bob sold the store.

It's to a chain, sort of, though not to one of the big ones. I'm glad about that. It's a company that owns several small chains like ours, and also some weird stuff like shoe stores and tanning salons. We'll be keeping our name and, fortunately, our branch managers, but the central managers will be gone.

We're told that day-to-day operations and things like in-store music and our utter lack of a dress code will stay the same, but I'm going to maintain a gentle but healthy skepticism until I see it.

The new administrative managers - ours is named Gary - seemed fine, and remarkably calm given the facts that they'd only found out about their new jobs about an hour before and were now being stared down by about fifty clerks with creative hair.

So we'll see.

But at least for now, I am still not fired.

I am no longer the Keymaster.

We all used to be masters of our own keys to the store. The thing about having the flexibility of hours that we did (and, for the time being, do) is that anyone could end up opening or closing on any given day. It just ends up being a pain in the ass if someone doesn't have a key, so pretty much everyone who's been trustworthy for a month or two gets one. (I got one after a couple of weeks. I think it was the occasion of my first flush of Video Clerk pride, rapidly followed by my first wave of fear that I might be a career video clerk.)

That is no longer the case. We'd been having some occasional problems with the burglar alarm going off overnight so Nick, the new owner, had Gary, the new whatever-he-is, change the locks. Nick then went out of town and Gary said that we would "discuss" who got keys when Nick got back.

Nick and Gary are apparently used to working with full-timers (everyone on our staff is part-time except the managers) and actually thought they could narrow the key thing down to two openers and two closers at most. Right. Between college schedules, holiday/semester breaks, and the various bands, improv groups and other assorted performances people are involved in, I'm amazed that the schedule gets made at all every week, let alone a schedule that can make sure that one of only four keys is always on hand.

Gary is not great at the scheduling. We just got our first one and many clerks are pissed. I'm not pissed, but it is an odd schedule. People didn't get the hours or shifts they were used to, and a few people have been scheduled for shifts they specifically said they could not work. But again, scheduling looks like a nightmare task. Maybe Gary will get the hang of it. If he doesn't, it certainly won't be for lack of helpful, pointed clerkly suggestions.

I feel sort of bad for Gary. He's been dropped into this situation and immediately had to make a hugely unpopular move. We're annoyed because it seems like the new ownership doesn't trust us, because nobody mentioned to the managers that their keys wouldn't be working anymore, and because until Nick gets back we have to wait for goddamn Gary to show up before we can open or close the store.

Friday morning I spent half an hour waiting on the sidewalk in front of the store. This one wasn't Gary's fault - there was some sort of traffic tie-up - but it was still hard not to be absolutely murderous by the time he got there. I had made a resolution to reserve judgement on the ownership change and try to be friendly to Gary, but by the time I had spent a full 30 minutes meditating on the fact that if I'd had my own key I'd have been warm, on-schedule to open, and not so fully occupied with trying to find the spot on the sidewalk with the least amount of pigeon shit, I'll admit that I had fallen down a bit in my self-imposed task. By the time he jogged up and asked if I'd been waiting long I gave him a look so full of steaming hot death that he pretty much gave up on chatting. I felt bad, but not bad enough to make polite employee banter.

He was less late on Saturday, but still late enough to eat into my set-up time. I dislike having to rush my store set-up, and I dislike having to wait outside with my early-morning porn customers even more. When I hit the lock in the morning they stream towards the door from all directions, so I know that even the ones who haven't been out on the sidewalk with me have been waiting and watching me stand there helplessly in my own private Beckett tribute.

But we had yet another meeting this week and I think Gary is beginning to see our point on the key issue. We'll see.

We're all hedging our bets. I think we'd like it if things settled into a nice routine and we could keep our jobs but maybe have a more regular schedule of pay raises, but I don't think anyone really believes that. There have been a lot of classified sections of various papers lying around the store lately.

My first interview is this week.

I haven't seen Mr. Cheekbones in months. Casey and I got to talking about it the other day and we both feel bad about it. I'd even had a twinge when I noticed that we'd sold off his favorite video. It was called Pee for Me.

Mr. Cheekbones was another customer whose name I learned early on. He usually came in with his headphones on and bopped as he walked around the store, singing along to the music in an odd falsetto range of his raspy voice. He liked porn - particularly peeing-for-each-other porn - and always asked when we were going to get some new kung fu movies, but really his tastes went across the board. He liked to try a little bit of everything, and was just as likely to rent Othello or the latest art house release as his trusty, much-rented favorite.

That made him unusual, but that wasn't why I learned his name early on: Mr. Cheekbones was a pain in the ass that I magically turned into a regular.

Mr. Cheekbones liked to prepay for his movies, which we usually don't do. It's not a huge deal, but it does require a special entry in the register and printing out a receipt to put in your drop at the end of the night. Now I could do it while blindfolded, shackled, and under the influence of a horse tranquilizer, but when I first started clerking prepayments bugged me. The prepayment itself bugged me, and then the fact that Mr. Cheekbones always mentioned his prepayment just after I'd checked out his movies and cleared my screen bugged me too. I'd have to ask for his account number again and it threw off my rhythm and now it seems like a very petty thing to be irritated with at all, but I think when I started I was an angrier clerk, or at least a more resentful one. (Hmm. I wonder if that means I've learned an important life lesson or if I've simply given myself over to despair.)

So I'd get annoyed when I'd see Mr. Cheekbones coming and he'd sense my distaste and be annoyed right back. We didn't like each other, and we kept not liking each other for a week or two.

Then one night he bopped up to the counter and chose David's register instead of mine. David was an even newer clerk than I was, so I gave him a friendly warning.

"That's Mr. Cheekbones," I said, "He likes to prepay."

And suddenly Mr. Cheekbones broke into a huge grin. He was a regular. I knew his face, his name and his preferences. A regular.

After that, we were buddies. We joked at the register, and talked, however briefly, about movies. One night he was checking out new tapes and I told him that the tapes he'd checked out before were due that day. He raced home, swearing he'd be back before we closed. I'd said he was never going to make it, but he stunned us all by doing it. He made it back to the store, sweating and wheeling his bike, with just minutes to spare. I clapped when I saw him coming.

He also had a pride about the way he paid: bills, not change. Once - only once - he had to pay for a movie with a handful of quarters and dimes, and he was furious with himself. It wasn't a big deal - we don't mind taking change for a $2.10 charge - but he kept saying, over and over, "You know me. I don't pay with change. You know me. I'm not the kind of guy who pays with change." He never did again, or at least not with me.

But we'd been seeing less and less of him for a while, and he wasn't looking too good. He didn't bop, he didn't chat, and he leaned on the counter like he was exhausted.

Once he came in with an awfully small dressing over a wound. Casey and I both thought it looked like he'd been shot. We're no experts, but still.

I don't know what happened, but somewhere in there he got his account cancelled. There's an outstanding charge of about $180 on his account, which usually means someone checked out movies and never brought them back.

Somewhere in there his life took a slide, and I hope he can make it back.

Wherever he is, I hope he has his headphones on.

This is my own fault. I slacked off on updating (general business and some actual freelance work came up) and now I have to write about the many things that have happened with the curse of perspective. I'll try to stave it off as best I can.

Thursday the 14th was my court date for the whacker. We had to be there a little before 9. Megan, my manager, was nice enough to pick me up and drive me there. I hadn't had quite enough sleep the night before and I barrelled out of the apartment having remembered to do everything but eat breakfast, so I nearly wept for joy when I discovered that Megan had also been nice enough to pick me up some orange juice and a blueberry muffin. Empathy: the hallmark of an excellent manager.

We actually had a pretty good time: Megan had a mix CD playing, and while we must forever agree to disagree on the joys of Aqua, she did have some excellent non-dance Swedish music. We were a little early, so we chatted, caught up on the paper, and listened to the song that she used to torture customers with back in her clerking days before heading in. It was impressive.

Security tape in hand, we went through the metal detectors (People, for chrissakes. We all know the drill now. We're going to be having our metals detected for quite some time to come. Have your goddamned keys and your goddamned change and your goddamned giant metal belt buckles OFF YOUR PERSON AND READY TO PUT IN THE LITTLE BASKET. Must we really act like it's a surprise every time? I would ordinarily have been willing to cut people slack on that point, assuming that perhaps they are unfamiliar with airports or courthouses or are from foreign lands where people aren't quite so jumpy about being blown up [Are there any of those left?], but my friend Sheila the lawyer says that she used to routinely watch people be surprised about having their metals detected before court in the morning and then, coming back from their lunch break, be surprised all over again. I realize that in a way that must be a nice way to live, but for the sake of the rest of us, PLEASE WAKE UP.) and found our courtroom.

Our courtroom was the one for misdemeanors and it was packed to the gills. Megan and I only got seats when we explained to the bailiff who was trying to throw us out that we were actually involved in a case and not just hanging out. The seats were a mixed blessing. We had a good view and reasonable physical comfort, but we also had someone in the very near vicinity who smelled a lot like stale urine. No, a LOT like stale urine. I was very attentive during our time in court, but there was a renegade part of my brain that would not stop trying to figure out who it was. I had it narrowed down to either the woman on my left or the guy in front of me, but afterwards Megan said it was the guy on her right. Though I was happy to have the mystery solved, I was vaguely horrified to realize that the woman on my left and the guy in front of me may well have had their suspects narrowed down to me.

9am hit, the judge arrived, and suddenly we were whipping through cases like nobody's business. Megan and I were out of there by 9:30, and there were easily 15 cases in front of us. Most of them were dismissed because the accusers hadn't shown up. Bang, dismissed. I couldn't believe it, but then I realized it was pretty efficient. Clear out the chaff so that the people who are serious about it get more time from the court system down the road. (Marshall Field's, we noticed, does not fuck around when it comes to shoplifting. They had a guy stationed there whose whole job seemed to be showing up as the accuser.)

A couple of people pled out, a few more no-shows, the woman on my left (who, for the record, did not smell like pee) asked to wait a few minutes because her lawyer had stepped out and not come back, and then there was a mini-drama: three teenaged boys had their case (trespassing? Harrassment? I can't remember) dismissed because their (female) accuser hadn't shown up, but the judge ordered them to all stay the hell away from her anyway. I was mulling over whether the accuser had been afraid to show up or if hijinks had just gotten out of hand and she didn't really want to press charges or what when the whacker's name was called.

Megan and I went up, but the whacker was nowhere to be found. I wasn't too surprised: his address on the police report was in Michigan and I hadn't seen him in the courtroom and it was, let's face it, a pretty humiliating charge.

The DA seemed pretty happy that someone who wasn't just a paid store representative had actually shown up. He put a warrant out on the whacker, told us it might be a while before we heard anything, and off we went.

Megan and I agreed that it had been an extremely interesting morning and wondered if they'd ever actually catch him. I was just delighted to have been on the clock for it.

I had this Monday off.

I walked in on Tuesday morning to find that Megan had been fired.

Well, technically she'd been "downsized," but the net effect was still the same.

It was incredibly weird - she'd put up one last note about busting holiday shoplifters before getting the news, and then she was gone.

Jeremy, once our assistant manager, is now the manager. He's a good guy and will handle it very well, but it isn't quite the way he'd wanted to get promoted.

Megan, by the way, will be fine. She's a writer and this might just be the shove from Fate that she needs to get going on the life she really wants. On the other hand, she'd been at the store for four years and had worked her way up from clerking. It would have been nice if the New Masters had taken that into consideration.

My understanding is that Megan, having been given a bunch of new responsibilities what with upper management gone and all, had asked for some more money. Instead she was told that we'd be getting a new software system that would eliminate many of her duties and she would no longer be needed.

The decision came from Nick, the new owner, so nobody can quite decide how to treat Gary. Gary has been friendly but extremely and understandably nervous all week.

More changes are, reportedly, on the way.

The new software system will usher in a new way of doing things. Some of them, like the addition of a drop box, will make our customers happy, but I don't think most of them will.

We will no longer allow customers to take IOUs, and we will no longer allow customers to sign up for memberships without a credit card.

In other words, we will be doing our best to prune off our customers with lower incomes. The credit card thing is especially harsh. I do realize that the ones who sign up without cards are statistically a little more likely to be a problem down the road, but I always liked the fact that we didn't tar everyone who didn't have a credit card with that same brush.

We have people come in from all over town, incredibly far away in some cases, because we're the only store that will give them a membership. Most of them are good customers. What are they supposed to do now?

Even though it means that most of our bigger pains will be eliminated, most of the clerks don't like it, and we're all fairly shaken about Megan getting yanked, and yanked so suddenly.

I spent much of Tuesday ratting out the Overlords and indeed, I'm continuing to do so.

It's been a weird, sad week. More to come.

Last edited by Ali Davis on 11-25-2002 at 01:59 AM

…But I did quit.

I’d been looking for work for a while. As freelancing work gradually dwindled (Yes, I know I said I had a surge this month. Surprised the hell out of me.) I was getting more and more dependent on my video store income, which just wasn’t cutting it. One of the main reasons I’d been staying at the store was the flexibility that allowed me to take on freelance assignments, which was starting to lose its point. The New Store Order wasn’t helping matters either. One of the other main reasons I’d been staying was a fondness for my managers (one down) and fellow clerks, who were starting to do some nervous looking around. The pleasures of working for a funky little neighborhood store looked to be hurtling towards an end as well.

There were more prosaic hardships too. The New Overlords let the general managers go when they took over. In addition to being swell guys, the general managers ordered the store supplies. Suddenly we were doing without incidentals like fresh punch cards and crucial necessities like toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Jeremy would have been more than capable of running out and picking up a few things until supply lines were back in place had the Overlords not also taken away the petty cash. The shift when the sanitizer ran out reduced David and me to jittery wrecks. So many matinee specials came in that day… Eugh.

So, yeah, it was increasingly time to go, if indeed it hadn’t been long before. It had been a long time since I’d had a truly humiliating job search. The phase when my freelancing started drying up was quietly terrifying, but not actually humiliating. A few freelancing agencies told me they loved my stuff but didn’t have any work, a few restaurants giggled at the bartender who was hoping to keep a standing performance commitment every Friday and Saturday night. I signed on with a temp agency (also with a caution that there wasn’t much work to be had in the New Economy), but the recruiter was a friend and so it was a painless process. As was my first temp assignment, until Gordon the Friendly Middle-Aged Guy turned into Gordon the Creepy Middle-Aged Guy Who Was Really Into Swinging and Wouldn’t I Like to Meet His Wife? As Gordon ignored increasingly less polite forms of "no," suddenly the Employment Opportunities Within sign at my local video store seemed like not such a bad idea. (Say what you will about the video store, but not even the scariest porn freak there ever hit on me as relentlessly as Gordon did. Even dirtbags know to take no for an answer.)

But while all of that was bizarre, none of it was actually humiliating. My last big stupid job search was when I’d first moved to Chicago at 22. It was then that it really hit home for me that companies with shitty jobs to offer will do everything in their power to let you know that while there is still dignity in all work, it is not for lack of trying on their part. I interviewed at a Sheraton that didn’t have an HR office, they had a "casting office." I went to one of those massive Tuesday-only application days that hotels have and saw a hallway full of people scrambling for terrible jobs to try to feed their families. They were, according to the application, aspiring "cast members" for the big fun show that is changing dirty linens at the Sheraton. Jesus.

I was young and bright-eyed back then, but in recent years I’d been working for some pretty cool places and then working for myself, so I was out of practice with sucking it up. I was called in for an "interview" for a job being a concierge in an office building, which unlike being a real concierge seemed to mostly involve saying hello and occasionally buzzing people up. Instead of an interview I filled out a colossal application that included an essay section on what teamwork (or as they repeatedly and incorrectly put it throughout the application, Teamwork) meant to me. I had to write an essay on why I wanted the job and how I would throw myself into it in a unique and exciting manner. I had to do a worksheet (even more incorrectly headed "Check Off Which Ones Are Important To You So You Will Give One Hundred Per Cent!!!") in which I checked off "Teamwork" but left, say "Gossip" blank.

I made it almost all the way through like a good toadie, but then on the last page I snapped. I was supposed to write an essay on what I hoped to achieve at the company over the next several years, but instead I flipped out and got honest on them. I even started the essay with "I’ll be honest with you…" I said that the company was not a part of my personal goals, and that, while I would throw myself into any job to the best of my abilities, it would still only be my day job. The advantage in hiring me, I said, was that they would have a cheerfully overqualified employee for maybe the next year or two.

For some reason I haven’t heard back.

I’d also applied for a job in the exciting world of telephone reception, to which I am no stranger – it’s what I did most summers during college. Reception is incredibly boring and also fraught with rude people, but at least one can pass the time by practicing Sultry Receptionist voices and putting the truly vile on hold for twenty minutes at a time. I didn’t really want the receptionist job, but I was really looking forward to the simple joy of knowing where rent was coming from every month. I had an interview – a real one, this time, scheduled for Friday.

And then on Thursday morning I woke up to a phone call. The man on the other end wanted to know if I would like to take over writing and producing an online game for Jellyvision, the software company I used to work for. Yes, please. Suddenly bang, a job, and one that I actually wanted. I start Monday after Thanksgiving and I’m looking forward to it: The work will be challenging and fun, the people I’ll be working with are terrific, and I dimly remember health insurance being a pretty nice thing. (In a perverse way, I’ve realized that I’m actually looking forward to my next illness or injury, just for the sheer joy of going straight to the doctor instead of waiting for five weeks to see if whatever it is clears up.)

Everything else happened suddenly too, so suddenly that I never knew Thursday would be my last shift. I thought I’d get one final shift in there Monday or Tuesday to say my goodbyes, and even dropped a note asking for one, but Gary just went ahead and took me off the schedule. It makes sense, I guess – this way I don’t spill over into another payroll week, but still. I dropped by Saturday to find out when I’d be working my last shift and instead turned in my hard-won key. I spent a little time reassuring a pissed-off Casey that I’d never meant to just split without telling anyone, and then it was time to go. I’d always visualized a sort of Dorothy-leaving-Oz moment, but it was the shift change and they were busy and a new clerk had already sprung up to take my place. So we said so long and that was it.

I felt a little bad that I didn’t get to spend a last shift cheerfully announcing my departure to my regulars and positively beaming at my dirtbags, and a little sad that I didn’t get to thank Mr. Gentle for being such a bright spot, but in the end clean breaks are usually best.

I am no longer a porn clerk.

Last edited by Ali Davis on 11-26-2002 at 05:00 AM

As soon as I started clerking (or, rather, as soon as I started telling people that I was clerking) people wanted to talk to me about porn. Sometimes it was with the same combination of giggle and frisson that is normally used for bringing up a silly-yet-scary ghost story, somtimes it was with an almost scientific detatchment, sometimes it was with prurient interest, and sometimes it was just because the over-the-top world of porn is frequently hilarious. Actually, it was usually a combination of all of those. I'm not being superior about that - I dove into the conversations before I got all cold and dead inside, and I'll admit to getting quite a bit of mileage out of my odd little job at more than one cocktail party.

Anyway, almost all of these conversations ended up with the other person at some point saying something like this: Men like porn because they are evolutionarily programmed to fuck around and make lots of babies with as many women as possible. Women don't like porn because they need to catch a man to provide for her babies and keep him forever and ever. In other words, men are bad, but they just can't help it if they screw around. Women don't get to sleep around, but isn't it nice to be inherently virtuous.

Because, I think, I politely resisted saying this in every single case, I'm going to take the liberty of doing so now: That argument is complete horseshit.

Evolutionary success is not about having the most sex, it's about producing the most fertile offspring. I'll say that again: the idea isn't to spread the most baby batter around, it's to raise the most children who themselves grow up to produce children. That's why your parents won't leave you the hell alone about making them grandparents; they aren't done until you do.

Male sleeping around simply wouldn't have cut it as an evolutionary strategy. First off, the male in question can't just sleep with any old female for evolutionary succes, he has to have sex with a woman who is fertile. Human females have concealed ovulation. Fucking around means rolling the dice each time, while staying with one woman at least through a full cycle (or two, or three - our ancestors didn't have our ridiculous abundnace of food and thus weren't as reliably fertile) meant a good shot at pregnancy.

...And that's assuming that the opportunity for Cro-Magnon or Australopithecine fucking around existed at all. Illicit sex requires privacy, and the days before bricks, mortar and loud stereos didn't provide much. Ever try to get away with something in a small town? Now try it when you live in a community of 60 breeding adults who live in thatched huts around a central camp fire. Everybody knows your business. And there's not a lot of stealing away for you-time when there's a danger of being eaten by predators. Doing things alone, for that very reason, tends to be looked on with suspicion when it happens in pre-modern societies, to the extent that it happens at all. I once read an account of an anthropologist's attempts just to go out to urinate by himself. The people he was living with couldn't figure out why he'd want to do such a dangerous thing.

I'm not saying that affairs never happened back in the mists of time, just that they would have been damn sight harder to have than we think of them. And while a single fling might have been possible if dangerous to attempt, being a rake would have been out of the question. Again, in a small community, word gets around. There aren't many evolutionary advantages in being ostracized by your clan or getting your head caved in.

Even if someone did manage to buck incalcuably high odds and impregnate more than one female at a time, he still has an evolutionary problem - the offspring have to reach adulthood and have kids of their own. His time and provisions would be split between more than one mate and more than one child, decreasing the odds of anyone getting through this completely healthy. The "faithful" male only has one child at a time, but can devote his whole energy to making sure the pregnancy goes well and both mother and child are healthy and well-provisioned. You have better odds raising well-fed children with two sides of a family for support than scrambling to split food between multiple children, some of whom may bear a stigma from having no socially sanctioned dad.

The healthy kids with family backing them up are more likely to have a prime choice of mates, and thus more likely to have healthy children of their own. Over thousands of years, it adds up.

On the other hand, women have more of an evolutionary reason to screw around than you'd think. Theoretically, a woman who can overcome the odds, have an affair, and convince two (or more) men that they've fathered her child can raise her child with the advantages of extra provisions and extra adults looking out for it for it's entire life. Again, healthier growth, better choice of mates, more surviving offspring in the long run.

This is a truncated version of my argument, but I'll let it go - it's late.

My point is that men are not evolutionarily hard-wired to have many mates and women are not biologically "meant" to have just one. There are (or at least were) advantages to both in being faithful, and advantages and dangers to both in screwing around.

The men-get-to-sleep-around-and-women-stay-home thing isn't in the evolutionary makeup, it's just deeply embedded in the culture (and, mostly, in patrilineal cultures where it's key to know who the child's father is).

I think that saying that women are good girls and men are dogs is a cop-out for both genders. It gives men an excuse to do a lot of unexamined sleeping around and women a way to pretend that they never have stray thoughts about sleeping with the entire tuckpointing crew that's working across the street. It's easier for men to just go on cruise control and not make the effort of being faithful (and vulnerable) to one person. It's easier for women to just coast along being Nice Girls and not dealing with the fact that temptations are very much there and look like a hell of a lot of fun.

Watching several men rent hardcore video after hardcore video over the past year has solidified this position for me. The ones who rent four or five or six a day, the ones who call on New Porn Day and want to reserve the new ones and paw through the boxes and then can't wait for the next New Porn Day seem to be looking for something that mere variety can't give them. Maybe it's trite, but sometimes I can't help but wonder if slowing down and taking the time, risk and effort of dealing with one other human being for a bit could show them a glimpse of that thing.

On the other hand, when women wrinkle their nose at tales of my workday, I sometimes wonder if pawing through the boxes until they found an image they liked might be just the thing they were looking for as well.

Writing this journal has taught me many things.

The first is that people who hold a given point of view too passionately tend not to be careful readers. I've had rabidly anti-porn people (mostly women) tear into me because I didn't say that all porn ever is inherently evil and I've had ferociously pro-porn people (mostly men) send me frothingly outraged e-mails because I didn't say that all porn ever is healthy, free and wonderful.

Both groups almost invariably accused me of writing things I hadn't - and sometimes accused me of taking positions when I'd clearly written the opposite sentiment. At first I thought I was being willfully misinterpreted, but then I realized that these people were just seeing what they expected to see, and what, I think, they wanted to see. It's hard to deal with someone's gray areas when you're spoiling for a fight.

But that (except for being plagiarized) has been the only negative. Mostly this odd little burst of pseudo-semi-almost-fame has taught me that people are funny, thoughtful and kindhearted.

I was amazed at how many strangers dropped me a note to say that they'd enjoyed something I'd written or just to say hang in there and it would all be over soon. I couldn't believe how many people who were brand new to these boards kicked in a donation to keep them going when the bandwith got tight.

As for the old IRC hands, I knew they were a nice bunch, but I've been constantly floored by their generosity of spirit. Performers and writers are supposed to be viciously jealous and competetive, but these have failed miserably at it. Their eerie ability to drop notes of praise and support just when I needed them made me much bolder about sending around writing samples, even ones without porn in them. So thanks for that.

While I'm at it, I’d like to say thanks to everyone, past and present, at my video store. I am forced to agree with Mr. Buddy: you rule.

To everyone else, I’d just like to say this: Be nice to your video clerks. Rewind, take your late fees like an adult, and keep the spooge to a minimum. Better yet, be nice to anyone you meet in a customer service position. Odds are very, very good that they’re having a rougher day than you are, and it’s easy to become a store favorite just by being The Friendly Guy Who Never Yells.

And, in the immortal words of Aqua, be HAPPY!

Love,

Ali