the INQUEERY

Part of being a manager in any retail job is being able to deal with problem “customers.”  I loosely refer to them as customers because they aren’t actually human beings.  Or maybe they are, just in their crudest, most immature form (possibly still more monkey than man).  The main problem with them is that they aren’t in fact customers, for they aren’t in fact shopping.  Not even window shopping.  In fact they made the (to them) hysterical decision to come into my store specifically for two purposes;  to laugh at everything in the store and to demonstrate their stunted mental growth.

This is the first and only job I have ever had that actually makes me hate the sound of laughter.  Laughing in a sex toy store means that something just happened that I will have to clean up, and as funny as it must look for the sex toy store guy to be fishing dildos from underneath the counter where your gigantic purse clumsily flung them, it really only makes said sex toy store guy long for you to leave said sex toy store.

Sometimes I have to check myself because I just want to lose it and show them something ACTUALLY ridiculous.  “Yeah, that was really funny!  Look at this, isn’t this ALSO funny!” and then frantically shove as many dildos down my pants as I can, clearing tables aghast at the abominations my hands touch along the way, laughing maniacally the entire time.

Check yourself B. Just let them laugh, and let them get it out of their system.

This is the ultimate crime to someone like me, because you are essentially making my job everything I am working against.

When I first started working in the sex industry it was because I myself was curious about sex products and improving my sex life.  Shortly after entering the industry though, I found a new purpose that made my job an amazing experience — helping other people improve their sex lives.

My first experience with this was back in 2006 in Los Angeles.  An elderly couple came in to the store and I smiled and said hello.  They smiled back, in that “Oh crap someone noticed us” way and then meandered over to the overbearing wall of condoms and lubrication.  I let them whisper to each other for a little while before making my way over to see if they needed any help.

“Is there anything in particular you are looking for?”

You would have thought I asked them both to show me their genitals.  And in a sense I did;  they were clearly in there for a reason and it was clearly embarrassing for them, and I thought How sad to be in your Golden years and still feeling sheepish and insecure about sex.

After some hemming and hawing and making them laugh a little bit, the woman felt emboldened and pulled me aside, instructing her hubby to stay where he was.  She hooked my arm the same way she had been hooking his as if she was bracing herself on me and she told me her secret.  She suffered from vaginal dryness.

The way she resigned this information hit me hard.  I would’ve cried in a cathartic stooper right there if I didn’t have work to do.  Here was a woman in her 70s who was obviously embarrassed by her own body, and where I would have taken a bold quick step in the direction of improving myself had I been in the same situation, she took a very tentative, nervous, almost shameful step.  Ashamed of our bodies for not being perfect?  Will we ever stop worrying about such inevitable and meaningless things in our lives?

I was very sweet, and I smiled a lot.  I was helping someones grandma, or someones mom, or this guys wife, but mostly what I realized was that I am helping someone.  In a very personal way, I am changing this woman’s life — right now — and she is so nervous that if I make one wrong move she will get the hell out of Dodge and most likely never try to approach this problem again.  My job became more than just work in those 20 minutes, it became a dedication to helping people in one of the most personal aspects of their lives.

I got her everything that seemed right for her and they paid.  As they left they were both smiling smiles, but they were different smiles than the ones they wore when they shyly came scooting into the store.  A “That was so much easier than I thought” smile, a “Why didn’t we do this sooner?” smile.  But my favorite was when she gave me a kiss on the cheek and then, with tears in her eyes, flashed me a “Thank you” smile.

So when terrors come into the store (and they are terrors!), I feel a little protective of what the store represents for me.  You aren’t laughing at the funniest dildo in the world, you are laughing at something that might be just what somebody needs or — DARE I SAY IT — wants.  We host tour buses of women that come in from middle America to laugh and judge, and we are told that it is our opportunity to reach out to these people and teach them sex positivity.  We really can’t though.  There are too many of them and they aren’t interested, so instead they just squirm around the store, destroying displays, waving dildos over their heads to impress their friends.

It makes me frustrated sometimes, and other times just downright angry and I have to step off the salesfloor.  All I want to do is my job, not cater to people treating this like a carnival of sexual abnormality.

Still every once in a while someone walks in the door, eyes to the floor, trying to go unnoticed…

That’s the customer I want to help.  If you have ever been too shy to ask, come in and ask me.

I want you to smile.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 25th, 2009 at 12:12 pm and is filed under The Toy Store. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.