Awkward Reuben

Last Friday, I spent the day "demo-ing" sausages at work. During the first hours of the demo, a man—let’s call him Reuben—approached my station holding a jar of mango vinaigrette from the produce department.

"Should I buy this?" R asked.
I nodded, "Yes, it's great!"

Dumb answer.

R grinned/glared at me. "So, you've tried it then?"

Oopla. (One white lie in retail is perfectly acceptable--if not necessary. But, two? I just couldn't.)

"Ugh. Let's open it and give 'er a try," I said, remembering from my training that we can open a product for a customer to taste.

I called Cedric (who works in produce) over, and he brought some carrots to try the dressing with. It was delicious. R gave my arm a tight squeeze.

"Thank you, Jaime. Thank you. I will buy it. Thank you."

A few minutes later, R brushed past my station again and whisperingly (made-up word) asked, "Did ya miss me?" He then became Awkward Reuben. You'd have to see this gentleman to understand. He was originally Reuben with a small build, flannel shirt, and thinning hair who asked about dressing. Arm squeeze, no problem. Perhaps he was really into his veggies and wanted them to play dress-up with something other than ranch. No problem. But, his question made it more about veggies.

"You weren't gone long enough, sir!" I chuckled (remembering my mom's favorite thing to say to us when we wanted to call an estranged boy: "How can he miss you if you keep bugging him?").

I don't remember the exact point I set out to make here, but the bottom line is, I anticipate I'll soon have many more interesting stories to tell.