Out of the blue

Inspiration for this week has largely been lacking. Events have not been event remotely sparse, but nothing has struck me as particularly meat for this forum. Or in the event that something has arisen that fits my chosen format, it's not been of interest enough to write about. This week has manifested as a background irritation, a creeping sensation of disquiet. Yesterday, I just decided to slack off for the sake of my sanity.

In retrospect, it was almost prescient. I was subjected to more of a stream of cattle than customer flow and it would have driven me to distraction attempting to author anything personally satisfying while keeping anything breakable from falling under the heedless hooves of our patrons. I'm sure one of the headliners from that shift will find themselves captured in print on of these days when I'm feeling the proper flavor of acerbic.

Right now, I'm a bit more interested in banishing the last lingering vestiges of my stunned shock resulting from a phone call.

It was late and the phone rang. When I answered the phone and did my automatic "station identification spiel, the voice on the other end quickly apologized and said they'd dialed the wrong number. No problem, this type of thing happens all the time both by chance and artifice.

A few minutes later, the phone rang again and as is my habit, I answered it. It was that guy again. I was expecting at this point that he'd once again gotten his numbers mixed up. I was wrong. Instead, he informed me that he hadn't misdialed previously; he'd actually lost his nerve. In a rush, I was informed he found me quite hot and that he desired to do things about it. He was a little bit more explicit than I have summarized and I think it just added to the sense of shock.

I mean I work at a PORN STORE. I don't care what sort of stories or movies you've seen, this is not a venue where propositions are commonplace. People don't really think too hard about flirting with and/or hitting on the barista that hands them their morning mocha. Generally, that level of personal familiarity isn't present with the guy who rings you up for your after-work porn allotment. If it does happen, it's either so oblique a pick-up line that unless the clerk is right there and prepared for it, it slips right by unnoticed or is so unmistakably direct and detailed they could be quoting a hard-core gonzo script. With the previous approach, it's so nebulous and fleeting there's no loss of face or embarrassment. With the latter, it's so abrupt the whole exchange is over before you really have time to process it.

This call fell somewhere in between and frankly, hit me like a kitchen sink out of left field. My first reaction was to thank him for the compliment. The second thing out of my mouth was that I was not interested in his offer. The call ended pretty abruptly at that point.

Granted, I finished the night feeling rather flattered, but the startled confusion has had a longer duration. It almost play out as a continuous litany of, "What the frothy fuck?! Why me?!" which is rather silly looking when captured in text, but there you go.

What a lovely way to discover a gap in my mental defenses. Shit. This is just not something I've run across enough to compensate for smoothly.