Text by martianchild

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As a sales associate for a good 2 years, John Kimbell was more than equipped with his amazing knowledge of the history of dishwashing machines, model refrigerators, and a lifetime’s worth of flawlessly memorized trivia and juicy insight on the appliance manufacturer companies of the world.

Working diligently, 5 days a week - and oh, when a customer asks a question - he would answer with the utmost passion a man could possibly have about something as incredible and as noteworthy as a rusty drying cabinet, or a 5 year old toaster. Question more, dear client - I have all the time in the world for I, John Kimbell, have devoted my life and utter existence to your satisfaction towards a big cold box that gave your meatloaf freezer burn two days after your purchase. How humble.

On every other day at the Discount Appliance store, John would answer what incredibly urgent concerns housewives and fat landlords would walk in with, but today John thinks about glancing at his wristwatch while a soccer mom who stood in front of him continued. John wondered why this woman was here at 8AM in the morning. In fact, why would anybody be at an appliance store at 8AM in the morning..?

The soccer mom had a mustard stain on her t-shirt, and crusted traces of egg yolk on edge of her wrinkled lips. She wore pink lipstick. John wondered briefly why women were so fond of that color. It was a nice color, but he couldn’t quite understand why she had chosen such a bright neon shade to rub on her face. Also, on second thought, the mustard on her t-shirt might have been Dijon instead.

He felt a splatter of spuh- hit his face and blinked. “EXCUSE ME. I AM SPEAKING TO YOU!”  her voice was shrill, she was really worked up about this laundry machine of hers.

“Yes, ma’am” he said, “I am aware of that.” He wasn’t, but he was now. And then John smiled politely- bit of an abuse of a smile though, he thought- but spoke in his calm, almost monotonic, How Can I Help You voice, “Would you like to take a look at our more recent models, or our catalogue for this year maybe?”