Sunday, October 12, 2008

Say "Hello" to Mr. Cool

I faced all the scary, animated, moving object on my way into Party City to return an item. At the check-out counter I told the gal of the return so she paged the store manager and said I could wait at the end of the counter for him. I waited and looked at all the knick knacks sold at the stand while the time passed. He finally came.

The first thing that struck me was that he was very young for a store manager - hmm maybe early 20s. He was tall, with the black hair that sweeps across the eyes causing the head twitch to swish the hair to the side. He wore his pants below his bum with a belt to secure it in place. He also had a tattoo of a serpent wrapping itself up his forearm. The store "manager" was some sort of "heart throb" for sure and some one's definition of "cool." Along side him he had a side kick - a "manager" in training who was tagging along with him watching his every move.

Mr. Cool didn't even exam my items, but in a hurry he immediately started scanning them for a return. He needed to cross off the items on my receipt so he started looking for a pen. He said he would be right back. Just as he said he was back with a pen in hand. Now mind you, it was no ordinary pen. It was a pen 24 inches long, had a three inch parameter, and a two-inch ink tip. Not only that it had googly faces bobbing up and around from a spring that was attached to the end of the pen. The "manager" crossed the items off so matter of fact, like nothing was different.

The whole scene really struck me as funny. Here is Mr. Cool, in the middle of Party City, with this big comical pen going along his business. Then he handed me the pen to sign my name for the return. I could barely even write my name with it because it was a bit too heavy to keep upright, much less manage a large ball point pen. I smiled at the scene and walked along my merry way still chuckling at Mr. Cool - who was probably just a big kid at heart. Why else would he work as a manager at Party City?

3 comments:

  1. i think it's so crazy what is defined as "Cool" these days. i can't stand the TIGHT pants/leggings the young guys are wearing these days.

    but i'm sure my parents couldn't stand the things we wore either.

    but WHY? tight pants on men? Yikes!
    hope it doesn't effect their fertility for the future!

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  2. My goodness. That says a lot about Party City. Either they don't care about their reputation or they had no choice but to hire the guy since he had lasted 6 straight months (high turn-over, I assume)!!!

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  3. Life is just a party..glad you found the lightness of the situation.. Happy to have him at Party City signing off on your return items rather than at the local bank signing or or not signing off on personal loan or car loans! There is a place for all of us, even Mr. low pants with his ginormous bobbly pen. What was his name? I might have dated his brother? In 5 years he'll probably pull up his pants and become a CEO for some hugely successful rival company to Yahoo or create the next Wii gaming system... Or maybe his family already owns either company and like you said he is just a kid at heart and just wants to have fun where he works... As they say "A bad day of fishin' is better than a good day at work"...
    M'lu

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