Four Poems|Paul Tanner
spoilsport
my first shift,
they sent me out
with a shopping list:
coffee? check.
sugar? check.
butt plugs … wait, what? butt plugs?
I rolled my eyes
at their wit
and went back …
the boss and supervisor were waiting:
did you get the butt plugs? the boss asked.
I said no.
but you asked for them, the supervisor said. didn’t you?
no.
yes you did! the boss pointed. admit it!
but I didn’t.
you went shopping for butt plugs, the supervisor said,
and you embarrassed yourself. didn’t you?
no, I didn’t.
YES YOU DID! the boss told me. JUST ADMIT IT!
fine, I said. I went shopping for butt plugs. happy now?
then they told me to put the kettle on …
why are these powerful straight men
always so angry?
maybe they were being sincere
and they’ve worn their current butt plugs
down to nubs,
I thought,
as I spat in their coffees.
constant man paradox
I swear
if one more middle-aged male customer kicks off on me for no reason
I’m going to reach over this counter
and deck him so hard his little pin-prick falls off.
middle-aged men:
do you not get that
you cannot be a tough guy and a victim
at the same time?
do you not get
that if you were really a tough guy,
you wouldn’t be so easily offended?
getting shirty with a shop worker
because they, quote “looked at you funny” or you “don’t like their tone”?
why waste all that breath and energy
demonstrating how insecure you are
when you could just put a neon sign atop your head
saying “I HAVE A TINY DICK”?
that way
I’ll see you coming and cut to the chase:
I will reach over this counter
and deck you so hard that useless little thing falls off
before you can embarrass yourself.
we’ll sweep it up after closing with so much other unwanted dust.
it’ll be banished into the car park bins forever
to degrade into a yet more anonymous dust.
no one needs to know
you ever had
that useless little thing between your legs, ok?
now then …
next, please!
triggered
I used to love Coco Pops.
but now
every time I try to eat them
I think of that stupid bitch
who let her stupid kid
rip open box after box,
empty them onto the floor
and pour like, five litres of milk
all over it
until we had this crunchy brown lake
of chocolate cereal
running down the aisle …
it sounds like heaven
but I’m the guy
who has to clean it up, ok?
and I felt like a bug
sailing in a giant’s breakfast,
wading through it all with the mop
hours after closing.
to this day
that aisle’s still sticky …
so yeah,
now I can’t eat Coco Pops without getting angry.
so I don’t.
working in retail can ruin stuff for you
like that.
I still have to put them onto the shelves, though.
and I still have to walk down that sticky aisle
a million times a shift.
and I still have to serve her
and her kid
every time they come in,
and be all please and thank you about it
when all I really want to do
is shove him
back up her
then choke the bitch
and I want the last thing she hears
over the roaring of death,
as her drowning sprog gouges
at the poisoned womb it once shat out of
to be me, lamenting
YOU RUINED COCO POPS!
YOU RUINED COCO POPS!
DIE, BITCH, DIE!
yes, working in retail can spoil stuff for you:
customers will sully
your aisles and joys
but I honestly think
the joy I’d get
from strangling them
would make it one-all.
sold off
I was in aisle 8 or 9, I forget which.
whichever aisle
had the puddle of piss in,
that’s the aisle I was in,
mopping it all up, ok?
and this bloke comes up to me
holding a can of peanuts
and he says: these any good, then?
never had them, I shrug. popular though.
that’s it? he says. that’s all you’ve got to say?
what do you want me to say? I ask him.
I want you to SELL this to me! he says.
I pay your wage, you know.
it doesn’t just come from nowhere.
it’s people like me,
spending our money here, that means YOU get paid!
so SELL it to me! go on, MAKE me buy it!
I stop mopping.
I look up at him.
I tell him: you’re standing in piss.
he looks down,
growls,
throws the can
into the piss and bleach
and marches off …
I pick up the can, shake the drops off
and put it back.
I went the warehouse,
emptied the bucket of piss and bleach
down the liquid waste grid
and went into the car park to smoke.
I didn’t feel good.
then I saw him:
he was stomping towards his car,
his wife yapping beside him
his kids running around them in circles
screaming bloody murder at each other
stomping on shoes wet with piss and bleach
that he was going to stain his car’s carpet with
as he sat at red lights
with her yapping next him,
with them fighting in the back,
the big important man
who pays my wage.
I still didn’t feel good,
but I did feel
slightly less bad.
I flicked my fag away
and went back in,
back onto the shop floor
almost ready
for the next one.
Photo by Torbjørn Helgesen on Unsplash
Bio:
Tanner is barely qualified for minimum wage and he’s allergic to cheese, for god’s sake. His cat knows your sins.
