Customer of the Week: Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Guy

Like most days in the bakery, I was busy decorating cakes last Saturday, and everything was going great. Well, at least until I happened to glance up to see the man from hell coming my way. I swear, this guy is the long lost cousin of Satan. He shows up pretty much every Saturday and walks straight into the bakery asking for oatmeal raisin cookies. Obviously, only employees are allowed in the bakery, and, more importantly, only employees wearing the proper headgear, aka a hairnet. They're so sexy, I think I might get one in every colour... NOT!

Anyway, in walks Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Guy (ORCG), and so begins our Saturday morning routine.

Me: Sir, I'm sorry, but you're not allowed back here.

ORCG: I want oatmeal raisin cookies, fresh, today only.

Me: Sir, please step around to the other side of the counter.

ORCG: (walking out of the bakery) OK, now you give me fresh oatmeal raisin cookies.

Me: (how about a slap upside the head?) As I told you before sir, we no longer pack oatmeal raisin cookies on their own. We only have the mixed family pack. You get two rows of oatmeal raisin & one row of chocolate chip.

ORCG: I want oatmeal raisin cookies from today.

Me: Sir, the cookies were made yesterday, so they are still quite fresh, but they only come packed with the chocolate chip cookies.

ORCG: So, you do not have oatmeal raisin cookies for me?

Me: (WTF, am I speaking Chinese or something?) Yes, we do, but not packed on their own, sir. Again, they only come in mixed family packs.

ORCG: (nothing, just staring at me)

Me: Sir?

ORCG: Why can't you open two family packs, and then put all of the oatmeal raisin cookies into one?

Me: (I wish I could so I could get you out of my face) I'm sorry, but we are not allowed to do that, sir. It's against store policy.

ORCG: Why? I'm still going to pay.

Me: I understand, sir, but we can't open a package once it has been sealed.

ORCG: (again, just staring at me)

Me: (nothing, just staring right back at him, and trying hard not to laugh because his face was going red, and I couldn't stop thinking about how crazy it was that a grown man was this adamant about having a pack of just oatmeal raisin cookies)

ORCG: (calmly, but looking like his head might explode) I want oatmeal raisin cookies... only.

Me: (OK, seriously, dude, you need help) I'm sorry, sir. You can always talk to the store director about this.

ORCG: I will!!

Don't I know it, I thought to myself, as he turned around and walked away in a big huff in search of the store director. Meanwhile, I went back to decorating the cake I'd been working on before he showed up.

I'm not sure how much time went by, but I was deep in the cake zone when I heard the store director say my name.

Director: Hey, JB.

Me: (walking up to the counter) Is everything OK?

Director: What the hell is with that guy is all I have to say.

Me: I know, seriously.

Director: I told him the policy on family pack cookies and he yelled at me.

Me: I tried to tell him too, but he won't listen. I swear he comes here every week just to see how far he can go before I snap, not because he really wants those damn cookies.

Director: He said he's going to another store.

Me: Oh, sure he is, but he'll be back. He told me once before that he's been coming here for years and that this is his store.

Director: (starting to walk away from the counter) God, help us all. I really need to go home and have a drink.

Yeah, and I need to get the f**k out of this business before I go postal, I thought to myself as I watched him head back to his office.

JB

Drifting Thoughts

(Original post date: Saturday, August 9th, 2008)

I am filled with an emptiness that’s larger than an ocean blue across a vast horizon. Talking does not make me feel better. It only hurts more when the words don't come as easily as one may think. Talk, but nothing is coming out, only emptiness is left.

I can't express myself, can't find myself in this skin suit I'm wearing. I am only a shell of who I used to be. Where have I gone? Where do I begin to look for me?

Shall I light a fire so that I can find my way home? Shall I send out a message in a bottle? It's hard to describe to someone how you feel when you can't feel it yourself and the words have disappeared into the darkness of your mind.

Darkness is falling over my soul... the soul of a lost child, trapped in a grown woman’s body and who has never experienced childhood. I have absorbed the sins of my father and mother, and have been lost in their hell.

I want to escape this world, leave it for a beautiful paradise... fly up to the sky, release my chains into the wind, and be free... escape to that quiet place I so desire to find, where I can smell the scents of the earth all over my body and let it blanket me.

I would love to sleep and not wake... slumber deep into the night... drift into a place of limitless air, breathe warm breaths of heaven, and lie down in a pillow of fresh dew.

I have nothing left in me. I am being drained slowly day in and day out. Soon, I will be a shell of who I was, unrecognizable to me or you... nothing left but my hollow corpse of dried blood, cracked flesh, and broken bones.

What used to be has to end. Nothing is as it was. Let go and go forth without hesitation... love and be loved... stay strong and never look back.

I, you, we are only one, and one we will always be.

JB