Love and Grooming 2

            One route to the store offices is through the stairwell starting near Liquor. Too near Liquor, as a matter of fact. We bypassed the elevator and headed up the stairs, past the breakroom and conference room, then up another, narrower, set of stairs.

            “Should I leave breadcrumbs?” Clarissa asked, then chuckled as we ran up the stairs. “Or croutons.”

            We came to a door with a plaque that said “Peter Wilson, Conductor.”

            “Peter,” Clarissa said.

            “Peato,” I said, and went through the door without knocking.

            “He’s not in,” the receptionist said, running to an inner door to block it. I proceeded.

            “Okay,” the receptionist said, “He is in but he’s…he’s…having a hangnail removed!” Clarissa kept her distance with an amused expression. I reached around the receptionist and grabbed the handle.

            “Don’t go in there!” the receptionist said. “He’s in a very bad mood.”

            She pleaded.

            “He isn’t having a hangnail removed! Okay, ya got me. But it’s as if he is! Don’t go in there!”

            I twisted the knob and Clarissa followed me in.

            “Benji!” Peato shouted, and nodded to the receptionist there on the other side of the door.

            “I tried to stop him,” she looked to Clarissa, “…them.” He waved an ‘all clear’ to the her, and she went back to her desk in the reception room.

            “Benji, you’ve been a thorn in my side for too long!”

            I sat in front of the desk. Clarissa stood.

            “How’s the hangnail, Peato?”

            “What hangnail? You’ve been listening to rumors, Benji.”

            Clarissa sat in a chair next to me, the better to observe the conflict. I told her that that was the sort of dissembling you’d expect from Peato. I told her,

            “It hasn’t even started yet.”

            Peato asked Clarissa, “You know this guy long?”

            “Just a half-an-hour.”

            “Then, you must know by now how stubborn he is.”

            Clarissa swung her head, back and forth, between Peato and I.

            “I have principles,” I told him.

            “Principles. You could still be a part of the Sooper Dooper Family! He stocked here for two years, then you know what he did?” Peato said, now addressing Clarissa.

            She swung her head to him, all ears.

            “Stocker fraud!” he shouted, and reaching back, grabbed a couple of six-ounce packs of Munchins, and lazily whipped them my way. I was able to duck.

            “Six ounce cans of pineapple chunks on sale!” he shouted. Clarissa reached down discreetly and grabbed a pack that had missed. I wondered what her true intentions were, at that point, and to cover, she shook her head at me, as if she’d heard the story already.

            “And nine cans missing.” Peato shook his head.

            “She doesn’t need to hear this,” I said. But Clarissa did. She leaned over the desk to Peato, nodding, and grabbed a Munchin pack that had wound up there.

            “Late in the night, and Benji thinks, ‘They won’t notice if I put the nine ounce Tidbits behind them!’ Like a thief in the night…”

            “It wasn’t thieving,” I told Clarissa. She nodded to me, then turned back to Peato.

            “Might as well been thieving! Round about noon, we found ourselves in a situation.”

            Clarissa turned to me and sighed, disappointment oozing from every pore.

            “…five checkers on break, and the system going wild. ‘Wait a minnut!’ the customers were shouting. ‘Those are supposta be on sale!’”

            Peato and Clarissa shook their collective heads at me.

            “Jonathan was up there,” he addressed Clarissa, “Like he has been for fifty years. And tells them, ‘What you have there are Pineapple Tidbits! They’re a premier item, never on sale. Imagine the dismay. The chagrin!”

            “Tidbits are chunks!” I shouted, and returned a Munchin pack off his forehead, getting him good.

            Clarissa raised a pack to Peato, for permission. He rubbed his face and nodded.

            “Go ahead. Knock yourself out.”

            Clarissa opened the pack. She offered me one. I shook my head. She turned to Peato, munching.

            “I love Bacon Cheddar.” She swallowed, and beseeched Peato. “But weren’t there extenuating circumstances?”

            “It was extenuating circumstances alright.”

            Clarissa turned back to me. She had my back, or so she thought. I boomed-

            “NO!”

            “Yes, there were, as you well know! Why are you denying it?” He turned to Clarissa. “He comes in at 10pm. Been to the dentist. His mouth all fucked up. Drooling. He had an abscess and they were waiting for the swelling to go down to fix it. A real trooper.”

            Clarissa pushed her face close to me, all sympathy. All citrus-smell and Bacon Cheddar. “Rough shift.”

            “Rough shift!” Peato cried. “Like it said on the write-up.”

            Clarissa was taken aback.

            “They finished at six! And, yes, we gave him a chance,” Peato said, and Clarissa stared at me, acting all crestfallen.

            “Everyone gets a Mulligan!” Peato continued. “We’re all family. The Sooper Dooper Family.” He spun his chair around, and before I could duck, pelted me with a styrofoam single-serve cup of instant fettuccine alfredo. (cooks in 60 seconds!) And then he asked Clarissa, “You with ‘Silty’?”

            She shook her head, had a Munchin, and talked through it. “So, he was written up for it. That’s fair.”

            Peato leaned over the desk to me. “Yes, that’s fair.”

            Clarissa turned to me. All the ducks were in a row. And Peato shouted-

            “He wouldn’t sign it!”

            “Oh, Benji!” Clarissa cried. I shouted:

            “Tidbits are Chunks!”

            “Yes, tidbits are chunks,” Peato said. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his forehead.

            “Tidbits are chunks. Little chunks…Very little chunks…Different UPC…Totally different product. And, I had to tell him, I said, Benji…” He hooked his thumb back like an umpire. ‘You’re outta here!’” He reached into a deep drawer in his desk, brought out a can of Talon Hawk Energy, and a wrinkled form. He cracked open the energy drink for himself and slid the form to me. Clarissa motioned to it and nodded to me. It was only fair.

            “Sign it, and start Monday night,” Peato told me.

            “I already have a job.”

            “We need hands. Doug joined the Army.”

            “So, I made a mistake,” I told him, “but the form doesn’t say it all. Signing the write-up would only compound things.”

            Clarissa shrugged to Peato. He returned the shrug.

            “Then why’d ya come in here.”

            “She found this.”

            I tossed the Nosehair Trimmer onto the desk.

            “What the hell is this shit?” Peato examined it closely, and read the label.

            “Nosehair Trimmer Poor Hominy.”

            He smelled it. Clarissa looked to me and raised an eyebrow. Then he reached to his computer, scanned the product, looked at the display and shrugged.

            “Not from here. Let it gather dust.”

            He spun-tossed the trimmer toward me on the desk. I retrieved it and got up. A Munchin pack fell from my lap. Clarissa grabbed it off the floor, and looked to Peato.

            “It’s yours. It doesn’t exist. I don’t see it.”

            She joined me at the door. And, as I opened it to leave, he asked-

            “Ya gonna put it on the desk?”

            “No,” I answered Peato, not looking back. “Too many things there already.”

            “It can’t leave the building! Put it on the desk, and that’s an order!” Peato shouted. I turned, but stayed at the door. Clarissa was behind me in the reception room, opening another pack. I turned to Peato fully and shook the nosehair trimmer at him.

            “You’re not the boss of me. I work for Zildy.”

            As we made our way through the foyer and into the hallway, Peato continued to shout.

            “You put it on the desk, you hear? Hear?”

            Clarissa followed me down the hallway, munching Munchins.

            “What’cha ya gonna do with it, then.”

            “It goes on the desk,” I told her. “But I wasn’t gonna give him the satisfaction.”