Ostomy Memories of a Store Manager

WHILE STILL IN SCHOOL, I had a job as night manager of the store on campus that sold supplies, school clothing, etc.  The store manager was one of those guys who always seemed over-matched.  He was constantly breaking into a cold sweat because he was continually being called upon to make decisions.  It was rarely anything of great importance but, still, he had to make a call one way or another.  His round, slightly down-tilted face wore a perpetual expression of dismay, as if to say… why is this happening to me?  He was a perfect, real-life example of Thoreau’s famous quip:  “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”  One had the suspicion that he had been, years ago, dragged kicking and screaming into adulthood and forced to take upon himself the unavoidable, irredeemable responsibility of going out into the world and earning a living.  Life, for this poor guy, was always going to be spitting upwind.  The speed with which the onslaught of reality came at him was destined always to be faster than the pace which his train of thought was capable of maintaining.  When I would arrive at work, late in the afternoon just before he was slated to get off, the difficulties of his day could be read in the circles of sweat under his armpits, the stoop of his shoulders, the somewhat disheveled appearance he invariably revealed, the mussed hair, and the harried expression which somehow highlighted the fact that his eyes were just a trifle too close together, like some preyed upon feral animal.  When I came on duty to finish the day and close at 8 PM, I was in the truest sense his relief.  I always wondered, when he arrived home, if his wife asked him whether he wanted peas or string beans for dinner, how he’d react to that uninvited need to make yet another decision.  If he snapped, the neighbors would say later that he seemed like such an inoffensive sort.   

"All the world's a stage an each must play their part" ;I suspect many are playing their part and in reality are on the verge of "snapping" these days.....in fact, just the other day when I was on the phone trying to resolve an issue and got pulled into "press 1 for this and 2 for that" and was NEVER able to speak with a live person after several attempts I turned to my hubby and said "it's no wonder people snap !"