June, for various reasons, ranks right up there with some of the shitty months of my life, despite a decent sale (the Top Secret Project which I may or may not announce here). After a couple of incidents last week, I realized I've got a lot of latent anger laying around, waiting to be tapped.
I don't like to think of myself as one of those people. You know the type--the ones shaking a fist behind the wheel of their car or proclaiming that publishing is just a big cliquey New York racket, or rambling on about The Injustice Of It All. Except, these past months, and really mostly in the past week, I've become one of the Constantly Irritated Masses. I've always hated salespeople, but everything is cranked up a notch and I'm trending toward outright rude.
The other day I slipped into a store for jeans. To note: I have a sprained ankle. Just walking through the mall was a bit of a trial, but I was with my daughter alone for the first time in over a month and we were having a lot of fun together. I limped in and told them I was here for shorter jeans cuz all my jeans are too long for the flip flops I now wear fulltime.
Besides the jeans, the guy brought me four t-shirts and some girl brought me 4 pairs of ugly shoes.
They were nice and polite, and I was nice and polite back, but I can't stand fending off overzealous salespeople. I know, I know. They have to do it. Corporate orders. But seriously, from the checkers at Target (NO, FOR THE THOUSANDTH TIME I DO NOT WANT YOUR CREDIT CARD!!) to asking for a dollar for Safeway's charity (sorry, I'm just not feeling the love for prostate cancer, even to the tune of a buck) to the up-selling at my face soap kiosk (would you like toner with that?), I feel inundated. Moreover, I'm worried. I feel like I could geyser an over-reaction of profanity-laced fury at any moment to some hapless salesperson.
It's happened before. One time a car dealership had our car "accidentally" blocked in with a truck, and they really wanted us to drive a car and were straining the bonds of politeness and my kid was getting sketchy from missing a nap and I told the salesguy I'm not going to ever buy any of your stupid fucking cars, especially not now, but I'm happy to discuss your sales techniques with the police.
I don't get to go car shopping any more.
This utter hatred of sales-people and salesy behavior must be related to some insecurity. Is it not wanting to let people down? I'm a mother; I should be used to saying no by now. Is it fear of confrontation? Could be. I tend to agonize over those situations later. Is it latent shyness? People consider me outgoing and friendly, but it comes at great emotional expense. Most conversations I feel like a complete idiot and they usually look as if that's not too far off the mark.
Anyway, I have no idea where this sales-clerk-aimed anger stems from, but seriously, God protect any door-to-door sales people headed for my house this week.
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