Racism And Sexuality: A Short Story About T-Shirts

Read the T-shirt, "Caution: The wearer of this t-shirt will hit on anyone.  If he is not hitting on you, there can be only one explanation: YOU UGLY!"

I read it, laughing.

"It's perfect for a friend of ours," said one of the two women who, together, were purchasing the shirt, among other items.

"Oh yeah?  He hits on everyone?"

"Ohhh yes.  It doesn't matter.  Age, anything."

"Well," I replied with my charm, "You need to throw out a lot of hooks if you wanna catch a lotta fish!"

"Oh, and he does.  He's already been through all of us."

She clarified that he didn't mean that he had had sex with all of them.  Well, she thought that was a clarification, but it actually just made the story more confusing.

The young child was dancing and twirling her ribbon as I rang up her mother's purchases.  Among them, I saw, was a t-shirt featuring the popular boy band One Direction.

"Does your daughter have a One Direction infection?" I asked, quoting a different shirt I had seen a couple years before, which now that I think about it may have been homemade and thus too obscure a reference even for me.

"Oh, yes," the mother replied.  She continued, indicating her younger daughter, "This one is into Mickey Mouse and Minnie.  My son has a beer, butts and rebel flags infection."

I asked her to repeat the last part.  She did.  It was the same both times.

"He can't wear the rebel flags to school," she explained, "He got in trouble once.  He had  a shirt that said Southern Pride and had a deer in front of the rebel flag.  I don't know what's wrong with hunting and our southern pride."

"Well..."I attempted, "Some people are touchy about that flag.

"Yeah, his vice principal is a colored, so he didn't like it."

And again, I am sucker punched by racism.  I miss the days when the racist would warn me it was coming by saying "Not to sound racist, but..." before saying something unbelievably racist.  That at least gave me time to prepare.  What was extra frustrating about this particular incident is that she claimed ignorance of what the rebel flag meant, that is just meant "We love the south!" and not "Man, I miss slavery!"  Thus, I was not expecting racism, since she suggested that she was unaware of the racism involved.  I'm an idiot.

The next adult daughter to approach was giggling, and her mother protested.

I asked why.

"She said she wants a big piece of meat, but she's usually a fish person."

I giggled as well.  In a world full of hate, lesbian sex jokes are always needed.

Chapter 2: Vibrating Hair Dryers And The Women Who Love Them

"I didn't come in here planning to buy a fish tank," said The Girl Of Many Facial Piercings, as I rang up her fish tank.

"And, yet," I said, "here we are."

Following this, a larger, late middle aged, large breasted tattooed women placed in front of me a hair dryer.  We have a rule here at Nifty Thrifty Days Of Cow Shit Farms, Maryland, which states that when any device that plugs in is handed to us, we are to ask the customer who has done the placing if she wishes to have it tested.

In response, the woman said "Hey, it's alright with me, as long as it vibrates well.  I can show you if you want."

The overt sexuality presented here in relation to the hair dryer startled me slightly.  If you knew of my backstory at all, you would know that I am no prude, but this woman essentially telling me of her plans to fuck a hair dryer and then offering to demonstrate this act, well, it surprised me.  I rang up her purchase, making suggestive jokes as I did so.  She handed me the cash.  Her change was sixty-nine cents.

"There's no other way to say this," I told her, "your change is sixty-nine cents."

"How bout sixty-eight and I owe you one?" she offered.  It was not an original dirty joke, it was one that any fan of such humor has heard thousands of time.  Sixty-nine thousand times, if I may guess.

"Man," I declared, "You are forward!"

"That's what happens when you have nine kids.  You learn to be forward and outgoing."

"If you're that forward and outgoing, you get nine kids!"

The next time I saw her she purchased fuzzy hand cuffs and sex dice.

Chapter One: Flatulent Children And Husbands Who Have Died

"Excuse me?" the child seemed to ask.

"Yes, darling?" I replied with my trademark bubbly cheer.

"Excuse me?" the child repeated.

"Yes, you have my attention!  What's up?" I pressed.

"Excuse me?"

"Yes?"

"I tooted."

And here we were, another day here at the Nifty Thrifty Thrift Shop, right here in Cow Shit Farms, Maryland, a small town thus named for the fact that the smell of cow shit farms, farms at which the only crop appears to be cow shit if one's nose is to be believed.  It's been a few months now since I began my job here, a cashier at a second hand store, and actually a rather large and well kept one if I may take such pride in my place of employment.  As the head cashier here, I'm responsible for over one hundred transactions a day, on a good day.  I'm at my cash register for twelve hours, open to close.  Not to brag, of course.

The next customer approached.  She was an older young lady.  Not ancient, just older.  Her cart was filled with Barbie dolls and stuffed animals depicting bunny rabbits in people clothes.  I had been told minutes before by my boss that she was coming, not for any personal reason about her, but simply because she had such a great number of Barbie dolls in her cart that I was told to enter them manually, to charge merely a dollar for each, rather than the two dollars at which they had been marked to sell.  I rang up the woman's purchases, making small talk as I do.  It is always lovely to see stuffed animals depicting rabbits in people clothes, of course, and anyone who doesn't agree with that is wrong.  I asked also about the great number of Barbie dolls which she was purchasing.

"They're for my niece," she told me.

"Oh, very nice!  How old is she?"

I've basically written a script for myself, you see.  Customers constantly tell me they're purchasing clothes for a new child, or decorating for a wedding, or having a themed day at their office, or having an Ugly Sweater Christmas Party as though they were the first to ever think of such a thing.  I have preprogramed responses for each of these things.  But this woman wasn't following her lines.

"I just lost my husband," she hit me with a sentence missile.

I automatically hugged her, and she cried into my shoulder.  This had taken a turn away from how adorable the stuffed animals depicting bunny rabbits in people clothes were (and they really were).

"We were together for forty-four years.  I'm lost without him."

There really isn't anything to say when someone tells you this.  You can write all the lines you want for yourself, in anticipation of what you'll be told throughout the day, but, you know, come on.  She thanked me for the hug and said it was what she needed sometimes.  I thanked her for shopping at the Nifty Thrifty Thrift Shop of Cow Shit, Maryland.

The next customer in line, of course, couldn't help but witness the conversation before.

"Wow, forty-four years," she said, "I can't even get someone to put up with me for five years."

"Oh, you were married for five years?"

"No, I've been married five times."

"Wow!  Working on number six?"

"Oh, shit, no!  Never again.  My last one, well...he fooled around, I fooled around."

"Well, hey, if you were both doing it..."

"That's what I said!

"Did you both know about it?"

"He had suspicions, I had suspicions.  He crashed two of my computers with porn so...two of them are dead.  One killed himself.  His daughter found him."

"She found him hanging?"

"Thank God, no.  He shot himself."

I rang up her purchases and she was on her way.