I wandered...
I stopped the car at the end of a winding, not-yet-assumed road, in the middle of a fairly small parking lot (compared to the original location). There it stood. The successor to the retail outlet I'd worked several years of life (part-time) in. The entrance had been marked twice, once as a Power Center for a community at least 5km to the north, and once with the name of a significant intersection located at least 1km to the west.
As I flicked off the GPS unit in my car (thoroughly useless on these new roads) and my MP3 player (so that the supposedly random playlist of tunes won't be wasted on the powered-down speakers), I looked around the parking lot. The lot was mostly empty, not a single cart sitting in the collection stations. Either the 'cart boys' were really on the ball, or the store was seeing very little activity this Sunday afternoon.
I stepped out of the car, my faux-leather jacket coming into contact with the errant raindrops as I strode somewhat confidently toward the front door. My short-cropped hair barely felt the effect of the water, the strands of hair not close or curled enough to be adversely affected. Two women stood at the door, one older-looking woman finishing off a cigarette and starting on another in a store uniform as a (slightly) younger plump woman in similar garb came out to speak to her. I walked around them and through the entrance door, not recognizing either.
The store was empty, for the most part. While the old place reminded me of dirt and concrete, this one reminded me of steel and antiseptic. The entourage of free-spirited employees was nowhere to be found, yet, but I had every intention of looking for them. A glance over to the customer service counter only resulted in a single brown-haired youngster, not familiar to me at all. A few carbon-copy blonde (with highlights) youths tended the cash, but I left a detailed analysis for later, if I actually decided to buy anything.
I wandered around the store counter-clockwise, starting in the clothing departments. Walking around the store, I saw little of customers or employees. There was one woman at the fitting rooms, but not the tousled brown hair and glasses of one person I remembered, rather a lank-haired drawn-looking woman tending to her work. I don't know what I expected, but maybe I'd have more luck as I walked around the rest of the store.
Electronics had another carbon-copy blonde (with highlights), wandering around the register waiting for someone to assist (I presume). No crowd of eccentric guys chatting around the register. The staples I suppose I was expecting, one who had left the old store after being accused of taking a bribe from a customer, and the other who had replaced him were nowhere in sight, and I tossed the idea of trying to strike up a similar conversation with the young woman in attendance.
The sporting goods section and the new food section were similarly devoid of both staff and customers, everything in its place, the few items in the aisles looking not tended to, but waiting to be put back, unlike the organized mess I recall from the previous location. A blank-looking fellow in the food section rang no bells, and I passed him by.
Coming full circle, I decided to go up through the center of the store. As I was passing through, I recognized the woman who was smoking a cigarette outside putting something back in place in a display. It looked angry, but I dismissed that as something foolish. As I began to pass further into the store, however, I had to admit that I was wrong. She was gesturing angrily, talking in a commanding and critical tone to two workers, one a young guy with facial hair and glasses, and a young woman with tousled red hair down to her shoulders.
The young woman looked at me nervously, as if I had seen something embarassing, and in her eyes was a mixture of frustration, anger, and hurt. 'Not at my store,' I thought, 'This is not acceptable. I don't care if she's management or what... this is not what should be happening.'
Then I realized, this isn't 'my store'. This wasn't where I worked, these weren't my coworkers, and this wasn't the same place I worked at several years ago. The staff, as I had suspected, were not given transition plans to the new location, and many of the part-time staff would not have tolerated the move to such a different location, especially since most of them worked within walking distance of the old store.
The old store was an entity of its own. A clearance outlet with no hope of being renovated, due to condo developments encroaching on the strip mall it was contained in. The management was structured, but not uncomfortably so. People got along, everyone did what they needed to, and despite complaining about the ever-present layer of dust over everything, I think the hard work was more than just bearable.
As I walked by the cash registers again, I noticed that the two cashiers did indeed look identical, and the three I had seen so far could have rightly been triplets. I saw no trace of the individuality I remember. No grungy girls with unusual plastic earrings, no girls who ran the cash office with an abrupt personality, and no happy laughter. As I walked out the doors, the significance of this struck home. I was looking for things from a past life that acted as an introduction into the world.
Sure, these things changed while I was there, but they changed even more when I wasn't. The world I had known had become something else entirely, and the world I remember was only in my head. I miss it, but at least I know where to find it. Within me.
As I flicked off the GPS unit in my car (thoroughly useless on these new roads) and my MP3 player (so that the supposedly random playlist of tunes won't be wasted on the powered-down speakers), I looked around the parking lot. The lot was mostly empty, not a single cart sitting in the collection stations. Either the 'cart boys' were really on the ball, or the store was seeing very little activity this Sunday afternoon.
I stepped out of the car, my faux-leather jacket coming into contact with the errant raindrops as I strode somewhat confidently toward the front door. My short-cropped hair barely felt the effect of the water, the strands of hair not close or curled enough to be adversely affected. Two women stood at the door, one older-looking woman finishing off a cigarette and starting on another in a store uniform as a (slightly) younger plump woman in similar garb came out to speak to her. I walked around them and through the entrance door, not recognizing either.
The store was empty, for the most part. While the old place reminded me of dirt and concrete, this one reminded me of steel and antiseptic. The entourage of free-spirited employees was nowhere to be found, yet, but I had every intention of looking for them. A glance over to the customer service counter only resulted in a single brown-haired youngster, not familiar to me at all. A few carbon-copy blonde (with highlights) youths tended the cash, but I left a detailed analysis for later, if I actually decided to buy anything.
I wandered around the store counter-clockwise, starting in the clothing departments. Walking around the store, I saw little of customers or employees. There was one woman at the fitting rooms, but not the tousled brown hair and glasses of one person I remembered, rather a lank-haired drawn-looking woman tending to her work. I don't know what I expected, but maybe I'd have more luck as I walked around the rest of the store.
Electronics had another carbon-copy blonde (with highlights), wandering around the register waiting for someone to assist (I presume). No crowd of eccentric guys chatting around the register. The staples I suppose I was expecting, one who had left the old store after being accused of taking a bribe from a customer, and the other who had replaced him were nowhere in sight, and I tossed the idea of trying to strike up a similar conversation with the young woman in attendance.
The sporting goods section and the new food section were similarly devoid of both staff and customers, everything in its place, the few items in the aisles looking not tended to, but waiting to be put back, unlike the organized mess I recall from the previous location. A blank-looking fellow in the food section rang no bells, and I passed him by.
Coming full circle, I decided to go up through the center of the store. As I was passing through, I recognized the woman who was smoking a cigarette outside putting something back in place in a display. It looked angry, but I dismissed that as something foolish. As I began to pass further into the store, however, I had to admit that I was wrong. She was gesturing angrily, talking in a commanding and critical tone to two workers, one a young guy with facial hair and glasses, and a young woman with tousled red hair down to her shoulders.
The young woman looked at me nervously, as if I had seen something embarassing, and in her eyes was a mixture of frustration, anger, and hurt. 'Not at my store,' I thought, 'This is not acceptable. I don't care if she's management or what... this is not what should be happening.'
Then I realized, this isn't 'my store'. This wasn't where I worked, these weren't my coworkers, and this wasn't the same place I worked at several years ago. The staff, as I had suspected, were not given transition plans to the new location, and many of the part-time staff would not have tolerated the move to such a different location, especially since most of them worked within walking distance of the old store.
The old store was an entity of its own. A clearance outlet with no hope of being renovated, due to condo developments encroaching on the strip mall it was contained in. The management was structured, but not uncomfortably so. People got along, everyone did what they needed to, and despite complaining about the ever-present layer of dust over everything, I think the hard work was more than just bearable.
As I walked by the cash registers again, I noticed that the two cashiers did indeed look identical, and the three I had seen so far could have rightly been triplets. I saw no trace of the individuality I remember. No grungy girls with unusual plastic earrings, no girls who ran the cash office with an abrupt personality, and no happy laughter. As I walked out the doors, the significance of this struck home. I was looking for things from a past life that acted as an introduction into the world.
Sure, these things changed while I was there, but they changed even more when I wasn't. The world I had known had become something else entirely, and the world I remember was only in my head. I miss it, but at least I know where to find it. Within me.