Ten minutes pass (probably 5 or less) when I have the overwhelming desire for Jr. to stop talking to me. I tell him we should split up, canvas the 200 receiving area, there are 3 doors 200 north, 200 south and , for some reason, 200R. I tell Jr. to stay with the truck in case I go in one door and unknown person comes out another, to which Jr. says "Why?" I do not reply.
200 south is a literal dead end minus the sign. At 200R I follow some fairly shabby corridor and arrive at a door marked 'Justice' with an apt door-type peep hole and a buzzer below a placard that reads: Ring buzzer. I do as instructed.
Just as I mumble aloud, "a lot of good that did" a tiny female voice cautiously says from beyond the door of 'Justice', "Who are you?" spoken in a way that inspires me to say very casually, "I'm here to rob you...can you open the door?" Instead there is total silence but possibly the faint sound of adrenaline popping through the delicate-brained sales associate on the other side .
Then so, I say, "I'm here to pick up some barrels - eight barrels - some are filled with buttons." After a minute the person says, "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not supposed to open this door for any one."
"Then why does it have a button and a sign that says ring buzzer? Is it just for fun?"
No reply, I can sense she feels she's being harassed. I retreat.
Outside in area 200, Jr. is hocking up a loogie with a kind of dumb-boy look on his face that reminds you of stories on mercy-killings and forced sterilization.
I tell Jr. what happened, ask him if he's seen anyone and he says, "Seen who?"
I wonder aloud what kind of shoppe is 'Justice' . Why the paranoia ? A jewelery store? That would make sense. So I take out my phone and look it up and it's just another American-brat accessorizing store. Probably a lot of throw pillows in pink with big juvenile fonts spelling words like "Princess" glitter galore for upper class trash.
And so then, I call.
"Thanks for calling Justice, I'm Tiffany(or some other annoying name could have been "Becca" I don't know) how may I help you today"
Hi, this is Dexter from Bradley and were conducting a snap poll of area merchants selling youth apparel and we were wanting to ask you a few questions
"Okay..."
What's the most expensive item you have in the store?
"Ummm, I don't know. But I can't tell you the price"
You can't tell me the price because you don't know or because "you can't tell me the price"?
"I can't give out our prices"
Is it a secret? Are there tags on the merchandise or do people just not care and hand you a credit card.
[silence]
Don't you think it's strange? I mean, you can call any store and they'll tell you how much something is. It just sounds really strange.
"It's company policy"
Do you think it's a good policy? To not even give a ballpark? I bet their website has prices. You don't think it's odd? This is like, the opposite of customer service. I bet you sell plastic princess tiaras in there.
"I just know it's company policy to not give out prices over the phone and I have to get off the phone I'm with a customer."
Are you really with a customer or just saying that to get me off the phone?
"Yes, there is a customer here"
Is there a manager there?
"I'm the manager."
You're the manager?
"yes"
You don't sound managerial.
"what?"
Is there a manager that manages you like a higher-up manager or something?
"No, I'm the only one working right now"
Oh, probably shouldn't have told me that. I bet that's company policy to not divulge that kind of information
"For your information -"
Look, I gotta go, you got a customer that's not there to help. Have an appropriate corporate authorized day.
The unknown person arrives and leads us in through 200north and then to a padlocked door nearly falling out of it's casing.
"All these barrels go"
The story on the buttons is this: on the other side of the wall in the courtyard between the "shoppes" sits a memorial to 'The Holocaust" there are a dozen or more six-sided glass enclosures filled with buttons.
Each button represents a Jewish victim of 'The Holocaust' (actually I'm not sure if they're including the non-Jew holocaust victims but seeing as those non-Jews included Christians and we'd have to assume some non-affiliated altogether - then being that religions are so prickly about symbols being attached and etc. I'd have to say that the 6 sided cylindrical containers are Jew-only Representative buttons)
The buttons we are in charge of are 'extra' victims/buttons or perhaps simply surplus.
Or stand-ins, although, I'm not sure of the purpose of, well, do buttons go bad? Given the context and the symbolism of these buttons - what I mean is here in this cluttered storage area these are just dirty surplus buttons but literally 15ft away 'these' buttons are a solemn sacred you know...- well, imagine their horror if me and Jr (who happens to be of German heritage to boot) were out in the courtyard sucking the buttons/representative symbols of holocaust victims ( I mean you'd think Or I would think that out there I'd feel it necessary to gently lift one button at a time ,carefully cover it with a tiny button blanket,after performing the Taharah.You know, in case anyone was watching.
Jr is manning the shop vac attached barrel with the discharge air blasting his face. He says, after a half hour of button vacuuming, "Man, I got dry throat" I say, "You got Jew throat." and he laughs in a way that made me wish I hadn't said it.
The horror of the button-holocaust-in-reverse continues as we load 'them' on to a truck to transport the buttons to their internment quarters which will be behind an orange roll-up door.
We've also been instructed to remove and "destroy"(actual term used by note writer , Sue, from the Jewish Federation) tens of paint cans and some kind of props to make room for the barrels to be stored.
I can not help myself -
Jr. willingly poses
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