Ladies and Gentlemen, This Is Mambo No. 5
A Little Bit of Me Makes Me Your Man
By: Jaime Church and Lou Bega
Today at work a man almost had a hernia because I wouldn’t let him return a sweater that was final sale. I feel kind of bad to be honest, because as he was telling me all the reasons why he was the exception to the rule, I was physically unable to listen. And it wasn’t because his argument was stupid or that I hate my job. It was because Mr. Lou Bega had sashayed into my brain and had already made himself at home. I would like to take a moment right now and note that this piece will make significantly more sense if you are familiar with the king of mambo, Mr. Bega, and his top hits. Anyway, this angry ‘client’, (they like us to call customers ‘clients’ because it makes them feel better about life I guess. It’s like why shampoo bottles always list their instructions in French as well as English even though something like Spanish or Mandarin would be way more useful in the United States. It’s all about the brand. And I guess we don’t sell to lousy old customers. We sell to sophisticated, smart, patient clients.) Anyway this angry client was standing right in front of me, looking me dead in the eye and explaining some crap about how he simply got confused when ordering online and the buttons were small and he couldn’t remember his email and it’s not his fault and hey, could I at least crack a baby smile for him? But he didn’t understand. He didn’t know. He didn’t know that as he was telling me to learn from my mistakes and take some wisdom from the ‘wiser generation,’ my attention had already been intercepted by Lou Bega and his Mambo No. 5. I was already taking one step to the left and then one step to the right and then one to the front and one to the side. This client was telling me that if I can’t give a cash refund, can I at least give him store credit? But I had already clapped my hands once and clapped my hands twice. Sir, I wanted to tell him, If it looks like this, you’re doing it right.
You know what you need sir? A little bit of Monica in your life. A little bit of Erica by your side. A little bit of Rita could be all that you need. Or honestly, a little bit of Tina is what I see. Let me take a moment and acknowledge the fact that you might be thinking that I suck at my job and that I really need to step it up if I don’t want to get fired. Or at the very least I should be a little more respectful. But to that I say I had already been helping this client for about 15 minutes and he was getting ruder and ruder and there’s only so much you can do or say before your options are chopped down to the following:
Go cry in the women's bathroom
Jump up and down and move it all around, shake your head to the sound, put your hand on the ground.
So I did the latter. I had been as respectful as I could have possibly have been, but a time comes when that jazzy tune starts riffin’ in the stock rooms of your brain and you have no choice but to see what's going on back there. And as for the firing part, I show up more often than my managers. Our store director actually quit the other day. I’m not kidding, she got up and flew the coop. Full on job abandonment. Maybe the Lou Bega bug bit her too, I don’t know. The point is that if they fire me now, they’d have to close the store because I swear to God It’s just me and the other sad young twenty-something-year-olds folding and smiling till our hearts quit. They don’t play fun music in the store because they know if they played anything remotely good I’d have way too obvious of an excuse to stop working and full on start dancing in front of all these poor clients who simply want everything perfect and instantly. They think they’ve avoided this problem by playing lo-fi remixes of songs that are objectively not catchy. But what they don’t know is that God installed an i-pod shuffle in my hypothalamus that exclusively plays Sandra in the sun, a little bit of Mary all night long, a little bit of Jessica here I am, a little bit of you makes me your man.
I eventually did have to get my manager though. She gave the angry client the exact same answer as I did, which I could tell seemed to come as a huge shock to him. Like, you could have told him that the sun was exploding and that would have shocked him less than a manager agreeing with the associate over the customer. He even looked back at me after she told him we couldn’t do the refund. He looked at me like, are you hearing this? And I was like, I know right? This store is crazy. I’m crazy for working here! And come to think of it, you’re crazy for shopping here. Because maybe the sun will explode! But that’s not half as bad as not getting a refund for the cotton crewneck basket stitch sweater in maroon. And as I didn’t say any of this outloud, I was shuffling all over the place behind the counter. To the right, to the left. I was on a roll. Up, down. So come on, let’s ride to the liquor store around the corner. The boys say they want some gin and juice, but I really don’t want a beer bust like I had last week, I must stay because talk is cheap.
You should have seen it, it was a concert for no one but all the seats were sold out. I have no idea what happened to that guy with the sweater, I couldn’t hear him over the crowd. I had a hard time getting out the door when my shift was over because I was so busy signing autographs. Shout out to my adoring fans! You guys know none of this is possible without any of you, I’d say all condescending like. When I left the mall that night, the automatic doors closed behind me like the thickest red curtain you’ve even seen in your entire life. I bowed to an empty parking lot that left literal goosebumps from my head to my toe. God Lou Bega is good.