By Charles M. Guthrieof the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune
October 18, 1958
I VOLUNTEERED to return a garment to the store for my wife the other day. I should have known better. A mission that would have taken 15 minutes of anyone else's time consumed most of my noon hour.
Nobody notices me in stores. Clerks brush past me as if I were a potted palm or a hat rack. I apparently wear a mantle of invisibility. And rather than grab a clerk by the throat and inquire acidly if he or she thinks I am there waiting for a bus or to get out of the rain, I stand mute, fearful of creating a scene.
IT ISN'T that I don't know what you have to be to win the attention of clerks, waiters and people manning information booths and gas pumps. You have to be an imposing presence. For the man of stature there is no wearisome waiting for a restaurant table, no languishing at counters, no futile waving for taxis.
Service for such a person is practically automatic. Around him is an aura of authority. Head waiters recognize him at a glance and become immediately obsequious and attentive. But try as I will I cannot bring it off. I am not now and never shall be an imposing presence.
AND RIGHT NOW I want to salute all those in the service trades for their unerring ability to appraise customers--for knowing which one counts attention as his due and which one will go unnoticed without blowing his cork.
They have me sized up as a patient and long-suffering sucker, grateful for whatever crumbs of attention they deign to provide.
The day finally will come, I fear, when I'll go unnoticed until it's time to close up shop and I'll have to step aside to avoid being covered up along with the yard goods. If I had a dollar for every minute I've leaned on necktie counters or starved in restaurants while V.I.P.s were feasting I'd be quite comfortably fixed.
IT DOES ME no good to put on my best pants and jacket and assume the pose of a railroad magnate, political boss or chairman of the board of Consolidated Spaghetti. It does no good to glare and beckon. On the rare occasions when I'm detected doing this the detector is some churl who is ignorant of the elementary fact that the customer is always right and I am told to keep my shirt on. My timing also is off. When I throw my weight around the clerk is looking the other way or the waiter is lavishing charm on the couple at the next table.
I have no quarrel with those who can command attention, give orders and have them obeyed. I have only envy. And when my gorge does rise to the point where I explode I then go into shock, feel like a boor and suffer acute remorse.
Thus it is that I have retreated into my blanket of obscurity and found, if not satisfaction, at least repose.
WHEN A CLERK finally does notice me I'm pliant as putty. I have bought shoes that were a size too small--and felt like it--on the paternalistic assurance that they were my size and that any discomfort was in my head rather than my feet. I have bought overcoats that would look nice if draped over a Kentucky derby winner and neckties I would not wear to a dogfight, all because some clerk gave me the impression that if I didn't buy them I wasn't quite bright--and also I would be doing him a distinct disservice.
Also I cannot bear to demand replacement of defective merchandise and seldom squawk even when a squawk is in order.
THIS SUMMER an associate and I ordered identical 75-cent lunches, which included a beverage. We asked if the beverage could be iced tea and the waiter said yes. We later got 85-cent checks and were told that the iced tea was extra.
We meekly paid and walked out, both of us burning. But to have complained over a measly dime would have been rather small. We were above such picayune bickering.
Ever since then I have felt closer to this associate of mine. He is one of my kind.
Copyright 2013 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.
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