{"id":4062,"date":"2013-05-16T00:16:40","date_gmt":"2013-05-16T00:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sporkpress.com\/?p=4062"},"modified":"2013-05-16T00:16:40","modified_gmt":"2013-05-16T00:16:40","slug":"quit-your-day-job-by-virginia-konchan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/2013\/05\/16\/quit-your-day-job-by-virginia-konchan\/","title":{"rendered":"Quit Your Day Job by Virginia Konchan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Timmy\u2019s strengths as a sales associate at Best Buy were few: he was a terrible liar, he couldn\u2019t upsell for shit, and when a young couple walked into the electronics department with a baby, instead of saying \u201cWhat a cute baby! Were you interested in hearing our specials on a plasma or flat-screen TV today?\u201d he\u2019d say \u201cWhat a cute baby! Was this pregnancy planned?\u201d
\n     Management kept him on because he took pay cuts gracefully and met his quota. Beyond that, Timmy was a warm body with a name tag who took up two parking spaces in the parking lot, not because he drove a monster truck, but because he could not park for shit, and was usually late to work, screeching in at the last minute with Talking Heads blaring from the Pioneer Premium 6\u201d x 9\u201d four-way car speakers he\u2019d purchased with the generous Best Buy employee discount of ten percent.
\n     His only friend at work was Raphael, ethnicity unknown, starting date at Best Buy also unknown, though it was rumored to be in the late 60s, when Best Buy went by the name Sound of Music. Raphael worked odd hours stocking shelves.
\n     \u201cBest Buy,\u201d said Timmy to Raphael one day at closing, while reading the day\u2019s sales report. \u201cWhat a joke. Best Fry, more like it.\u201d Raphael considered this.
\n     \u201cLest You Die,\u201d he said.
\n     \u201cNowhere near catchy, bud,\u201d said Timmy.
\n     \u201cDon\u2019t Ask Why. Buster Buy?\u201d
\n     \u201cDon\u2019t quit your day job to name franchises,\u201d said Timmy. \u201cThat\u2019s for damn sure.\u201d
\n     \u201cFuck you,\u201d said Raphael.
\n     \u201cAren\u2019t you named after an angel of God? Now that\u2019s funny, with your mouth.\u201d
\n     Timmy and Raphael began to tussle, throwing unopened rolls of register tape at each other until Sandy, the floor manager on Mondays and Fridays, got on the intercom. \u201cOne more headache from either one of you losers and you\u2019re both splitsville.\u201d
\n     \u201cDon\u2019t worry,\u201d said Raphael, after a few minutes passed. \u201cThey\u2019ll never fire me. I\u2019m the black box. I know shit I don\u2019t even know that I know. And if you\u2019re let go, they\u2019ll send you last week\u2019s pay in the mail. It\u2019s the law. To top it off you live with your folks, right? Hey, no shame in that. But if you lost your job, you wouldn\u2019t miss a mortgage payment. That shit\u2019s serious. They take your house now. They will. Hey mister. Meet street. Boom. Just like that. So relax.\u201d
\n     The following day was uneventful, as was the day after that. Then came Friday.
\n     \u201cTGIF!\u201d exclaimed Sandy in the warehouse behind the store, where Timmy was doing inventory at 9 a.m. \u201cGod, I love Fridays. Any fun plans this weekend?\u201d
\n     \u201cI might buy a pit bull,\u201d said Timmy.
\n     \u201cPit bulls are so nice,\u201d said Sandy. \u201cReally, they\u2019re just genetically programmed to be vicious, with the right training. Or the wrong training, if you\u2019re not into dog fighting. I know I\u2019m not. I think it\u2019s terrible. Those poor puppies! Once I saw a man calling to this little pit bull from across the lawn, \u2018here girl, here girl,\u2019 and the poor puppy was trying to make her way to her owner, and the owner had a brick tied around the little guy\u2019s neck, so all she could do was like inch over to him. Did I say little guy? I meant little bitch, as in female dog. God, it was so fucking horrible! Those people are sick! Cock fighting too! All of it.\u201d She paused to examine her fingernails. \u201cYou\u2019re the worst salesman we have, Timmy,\u201d she said. \u201cAll-time worst, in fact. But you\u2019re kind of cute.\u201d
\n     Timmy looked up, notepad in hand.
\n     \u201cYou\u2019re blushing! God, you are cute. See you on the floor!\u201d She danced out Salome-style, but without the sex appeal. Timmy dug his fingernails, long for a man, into the palm of his hand, the one not carrying the notepad, with the intention of drawing blood, but when he left the warehouse the only evidence of his frustration was a dark pink half-moon shaped indentation on his free palm. Fucking HOE, he thought. I\u2019m a loser? She\u2019s the loser to end all losers. She\u2019s the lamest loser Best Buy has ever seen. She\u2019s\u2014his reverie was interrupted by the day\u2019s first customer, seen on the video camera that monitored the entrance door, conveniently installed in the break room for slackers.
\n     \u201cGo get \u2018em tiger,\u201d said John, without emotion. John dusted things. His official title included the clause \u201ctheft prevention.\u201d He came in once or twice a week.
\n     The first customer of the day said he was looking for a vanity dressing table for his daughter\u2019s sweet sixteen. \u201cWe have three models to choose from,\u201d said Timmy. \u201cRight this way.\u201d On the way over to the vanities Timmy asked \u201cWhat\u2019s your daughter\u2019s name? Judith?\u201d The customer, a bit on the touchy side, was offended by Timmy\u2019s line of questioning, and asked to speak with a manager. \u201cI am<\/i> the manager,\u201d said Timmy. He\u2019d always wanted to say that. He\u2019d always found it very unfortunate that he was not in fact the manager, and would probably never be, not in his lifetime.
\n     \u201cI don\u2019t believe you,\u201d said the man. \u201cNo company would ever let a flunkey like you manage their store.\u201d He took off for customer service, Timmy hot on his trail.
\n     \u201cSandy, I can explain,\u201d said Timmy, the moment she arrived after being paged. She listened first to the customer\u2019s side of the story, then to Timmy\u2019s (\u201cI was just trying to make conversation! It\u2019s a long haul from kitchen appliances to bedroom furniture!\u201d), then pointed (this was the moment she had always dreamed of) to the sign above the customer service desk: \u201cThe Customer is Always Right, Even When They\u2019re Not.\u201d
\n     \u201cIf I don\u2019t fire you, Timmy,\u201d she said, while the customer stewed several feet away, \u201cI\u2019ll get fired. No hard feelings? You have my number? Don\u2019t be a stranger!\u201d
\n     Timmy threw his name badge in the waste bin behind the desk. \u201cHe\u2019s not a customer! He didn\u2019t even buy anything! He\u2019s just a shopper<\/i>! And that\u2019s not a waste bin, by the way,\u201d he said. \u201cIt really annoyed me that you called that thing a waste bin. It\u2019s not a waste bin. It\u2019s not a garbage receptacle. It\u2019s a trash can, Sandy.\u201d
\n     \u201cBye bye,\u201d she said, waving her tiny hand. It was then that Timmy noticed Sandy\u2019s wedding ring.
\n     \u201cYou\u2019re married? Who\u2019s sick now Sandy? Flirting with me in the warehouse? The fucking warehouse<\/i>? It\u2019s so dark in there! Anything could happen! I could scre\u2014\u201d
\n     \u201cThe cops are holding on line three,\u201d she said.
\n     Timmy read with no small degree of exultation the following week in the local newspaper that the \u201cB\u201d on the \u201cBest Buy\u201d sign, improperly fastened, had fallen off mid-day, narrowing missing smashing the cranium of Norma Katz, an incoming customer, who promptly sued the store for thousands of dollars, citing the untold pain and suffering that results from a near-death experience.
\n     \u201cNew horizons,\u201d said Timmy\u2019s mother Rosalie that evening, on the family\u2019s screened-in porch. \u201cYour whole life is ahead of you! You\u2019re only thirty-five years old. Thirty-five is young, Timmy. It\u2019s the new twenty-five! I read that somewhere, I did. You could go back to school for nursing, that\u2019s a hot profession, hot meaning lucrative, not sexy\u2014oh, Timmy don\u2019t give me that look. I know how you young people talk. What do you call getting together with a lady friend? Hooking up? Now what\u2019s that <\/i>look? Am I embarrassing you? Well, give nursing some thought. That or real estate.\u201d
\n     \u201cI\u2019m opening my own business,\u201d said Timmy. \u201cCoffee.\u201d
\n     \u201cDon\u2019t coffee shops get their coffee from sub-saharan Africa? They give those people peanuts in exchange for their labor, Timmy. The tea, too. The tea trade might be even more exploitative. And diamonds\u2014did you know that every diamond is covered, figuratively speaking, in blood? Same with microchips. Both are dripping in blood, sweat and tears, from those miners. I only buy man-made gems now. All the Hollywood stars do. There\u2019s this lab in Wisconsin that manufactures them\u2014\u201d
\n     \u201cMy business is called Starfux,\u201d said Timmy.
\n     \u201cI beg your pardon? Is that German?\u201d
\n     \u201cYeah. It\u2019s German for Fuck You, capitalist imperialism.\u201d
\n     \u201cAre you reading Marx again? Because when you do you always start talking like this, and I have a feeling you\u2019re misquoting him anyway, not that I would know. I went to a trade school, not one of these fancy liberal arts schools that are all the rage. Your father\u2019s monthly debt payments to Colgate for your education are obscene, for a four-year degree in anthropology nonetheless. A lot of good that degree did you! Women of my generation were encouraged to study something practical, like stenography.\u201d
\n     \u201cI took out a small business loan yesterday,\u201d said Timmy. \u201cWe open shop next month, right across from you-know-who.\u201d
\n     \u201cWho\u2019s we?\u201d
\n     \u201cMe and Raphael.\u201d
\n     \u201cYou\u2019re too young to have enemies, especially corporate enemies on the NASDAQ. Besides, that company is known for being good to its employees! I think they even get dental insurance. Who is this Raphael fellow? Someone from Colgate?\u201d
\n     \u201cYeah. A trustee.\u201d
\n     \u201cI\u2019m sure. So, a businessman. Let me practice. \u2018I\u2019d like you to meet my son, Timothy Walters the Third.\u2019 \u2018And what does Timothy do?\u2019 \u2018Timothy is a businessman. He owns his own store, right in Fairfax.\u2019\u201d Rosalie took a deep breath then reached for her cigarettes. \u201cI like the way that sounds,\u201d she said, lighting up. \u201cI think I can live with this. But why coffee?\u201d
\n     \u201cProcess of elimination. It was either Jerk It City, a new electronic superstore, Cockbuster, a new video store, or Raples, a new office supply store. An independent coffee store requires the least capital.\u201d Rosalie blew a series of smoke rings.
\n     \u201cWait until your father gets wind of this. I\u2019m going to need a long vacation just to cope with your anti-American hatred and defiance. Raples? Are you really my child? I just saw a special on people who were accidentally given to the wrong parents at birth. Happens all the time.\u201d
\n     On opening day, Timmy\u2019s mother and her friend Suzanne sailed in at half past 10:00. A little nonplussed that his mother was his first customer, but glad for the business, Timmy put on his best owner-who-gets-his-hands-dirty smile.
\n     \u201cWhat\u2019ll it be, ladies?\u201d Suzanne put a twenty on the counter.
\n     \u201cI\u2019ll have a grande mocha java with extra whipped cream.\u201d
\n     \u201cWe call those \u2018biggies\u2019 here.\u201d
\n     \u201cFine. And whatever Rosalie wants.\u201d She turned to Rosalie and winked. \u201cThat alimony check arrived not a minute too soon. I told my attorney for months garnishing Cheston\u2019s wages was the only way. \u2018Let\u2019s play nice, Suzanne,\u2019 he said. Play nice! You don\u2019t play nice with sleazeballs, especially ones who leave their family in the lurch for a skanky 20-year old exotic dancer who probably has ten children of her own\u2014\u201d
\n     \u201cHere you go,\u201d said Timmy. He turned to his mother. \u201cAnd for you, ma\u2019am?\u201d
\n     \u201cMa\u2019am? I birthed you!\u201d The bell jangled and in walked a pair of teenagers in Goth attire. \u201cA small coffee, extra sugar,\u201d said Rosalie.
\n     \u201cThat young lady looks malnourished,\u201d Rosalie said loudly while she and Suzanne combed the small caf\u00e9 for a table. \u201cAnd pale<\/i>. Have you ever seen such a pale young lady?\u201d Timmy excused himself from taking the next order to follow Rosalie and Suzanne to their seats.
\n     \u201cYou forgot to take a brochure,\u201d he said. The women sat down and Rosalie began reading aloud. \u201cWelcome to Starfux! Here at Starfux we believe that Corporate America has successfully destroyed the American Dream, which in today\u2019s capitalistic, hyper-litigious society is inseparable from purchasing power and informed consumer choices. The constituent\/customer has been drugged into believing that\u2014\u201d
\n     \u201cWait,\u201d said Suzanne, \u201care you making that up?\u201d
\n     \u201cI wish I was,\u201d said Rosalie. \u201cThank God I\u2019m almost to the end.\u201d
\n     \u201cOf the first flap<\/i>! Rosalie! Your son is a flaming liberal! Does he support gay marriage? Is that the last flap? This is so bad. This is worse than bad. Oh my god. Keep reading.\u201d
\n     \u201cThe constituent\/consumer has been drugged into believing that free-market capitalism gives corporate monopolies a government-legislated right to gobble up small businesses like Pac-Man\u2014\u201d
\n     \u201cPac-Man? Wouldn\u2019t that be Pac-Men?\u201d
\n     \u201cTake notes, Suzanne. Write that one down. \u2018Like Pac-Man, and deny your average hard-working middle-class citizen the opportunity to choose between supporting a local business and buying into the mass corruption of corporate monopolies, who export goods from Third-World countries, paying laborers nothing resembling honest wages for their exported goods, and pay minimum wage to domestic workers with jobs titles like \u201cgreeter\u201d and \u201cstocker\u201d to create their employee base and run pernicious outfits such as Wal-Mart, because there are no other factories or businesses in town for which a person with minimal or no education can seek employment.\u2019\u201d
\n     \u201cIs that it?\u201d
\n     \u201cOf the front flap, yes. I\u2019m scared to open it.\u201d
\n     \u201cDon\u2019t. I wouldn\u2019t. Thank god my kids went to a state school. Is Colgate where he picked up this, this, I don\u2019t even know what this is. This is outrageous. I love Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has the best deals on everything! And I don\u2019t have to run around town for hours in a hot car\u2014okay, I have AC, it\u2019s not hot on the inside, but it sure is hot on the outside\u2014picking up toothpaste from one store and frozen chicken wings from another! It\u2019s brilliant! That\u2019s why Timmy\u2019s so upset. The corporate model is brilliant.\u201d She leaned in closer. \u201cDo you know how much he charged me for this mochachino? $3.75, Rosalie. Do you know how much his competitor charges? $3.55. You call this extra whipped cream? A measly dribble of some nasty soy-derivative is what I call it.\u201d
\n     \u201cIt melted, Suzanne. Can\u2019t you see how it got stirred in with the rest of your yummy drink? Think what you will about my son\u2019s politics, but don\u2019t insult his product. This is good product. This coffee\u2014\u201d she paused to take a deep swig\u2014\u201cthis might be the best coffee I\u2019ve ever had. Shade-grown beans right from Guatemala. Furthermore, I taste happy labor in this drink. I taste freedom, well-fed families, and legal, above-board transactions between grower and buyer. They probably export this coffee on big Delta airplanes flown by no-nonsense pilots. Delta, or United Air\u2014what do you want to bet? Should I ask him?\u201d
\n     \u201cYou tell your son that his little social experiment is having an adverse effect on this particular\u2014what did he call me? Constituent\/consumer?\u2014this particular woman<\/i>. This \u2018outfit\u2019 of his makes me want to take a road trip in my foreign-made car to my local Mickey D\u2019s for a Big Mac, or make a run for the border to my local Taco Bell\u2014\u201d
\n     \u201cTaco Hell,\u201d said Rosalie. \u201cTaco Hell! That\u2019s so funny! I just made that one up myself. I hope I did, at least. I\u2019ve never been very witty. Though Cliff tells me\u2014\u201d
\n     \u201cBell, hell, who cares. My point is that this place is doomed. Mark my words.\u201d Suzanne slung her purse over her shoulder. \u201cYou coming?\u201d
\n     \u201cYes, but not because I\u2019m unimpressed by my son\u2019s venture. This takes guts, Suzanne. That\u2019s more than I can say for your son. What is Tyler? A paralegal? Working under your ex-husband?\u201d
\n     \u201cGet thee to a temp agency,\u201d hissed Suzanne, to Timmy, on her way out. In the parking lot, she turned to Rosalie. \u201cI had a lovely morning,\u201d she said. \u201cYou should be very proud.\u201d With that she got into her SUV, and left.
\n     Rosalie climbed into her Park Avenue with difficulty, shut the door, and began sobbing, slumped over the wheel.
\n     For two straight months, sales at Starfux went through the roof. Raphael proved to be more tactful, so he manned the register, while Timmy sat in the back office thinking about the big picture (a second location, comfier chairs). After a lengthy interview process they brought on one part-timer, a lanky teen named Torrance, and received press from local television stations, whose reporters were more amused by their assignment than the viewers were of the store\u2019s existence, but most residents were so shocked by Starfux\u2019s audacity that they checked out the caf\u00e9 themselves, at least once. A graphic designer Timmy knew from college helped them create a corporate logo, business cards, and a website; when they added free Wi-Fi to their list of amenities, several techies who spent hours at the competitor\u2019s caf\u00e9 made the switch. Even Sandy stopped in with her husband, buying two lattes and a pound of coffee.
\n     \u201cIf only you had shown this much initiative at Best Buy!\u201d said Sandy. \u201cI didn\u2019t tell you this at the time of your dismissal, but I receive incentives for reporting employee misconduct such as stealing, and that includes stealing company time through laziness, even though that\u2019s kind of an abstraction. Time, I mean, not laziness. So I thought I would get bonus bucks for firing you, but it turns out behaving disrespectfully to customers or even making sexual innuendos\u2014that\u2019s what that customer thought you were doing, trying to get his daughter\u2019s phone number\u2014is totally cool. I mean, it\u2019s not cool, but you don\u2019t get bonus bucks for reporting it. I wish I knew that then. You\u2019d still be with us, sharing your amazing marketing skills and putting customers in their places! Because you were right when you said he was just a shopper and not a customer, but I had my managerial hat on, and I can\u2019t very well agree <\/i>with you with that hat on.\u201d
\n     \u201cYou didn\u2019t have a problem propositioning me with that hat on,\u201d said Timmy.
\n     \u201cPropositioning you? Are you crazy<\/i>?\u201d
\n     \u201cSay that again, to my wife,\u201d said the husband. \u201cI dare you. Say it again.\u201d Sandy put her hand on her husband\u2019s bicep.
\n     \u201cIt\u2019s nothing, Hank. Just a misunderstanding. He\u2019s young! He\u2019s so young. He doesn\u2019t have a clue. Look, he dyed his hair blue, just at the tips! He\u2019s a baby. Come on. Let\u2019s go.\u201d
\n     Hank placed a call to the local health inspector, who paid a visit to Starfux the following day; the store was forced to close temporarily while further inspections of hand towels were conducted. Raphael, who had a mortgage payment to worry about, caved in at week three to return to Best Buy; Sandy took him back with open, gloating arms.
\n     \u201cI told you son, you can\u2019t just go around thumbing your nose at institutions that put bread on the table for thousands of Americans,\u201d Cliff said to Timmy, after several drinks at their home on the evening of Raphael\u2019s resignation.
\n     \u201cCorporate conglomerates aren\u2019t institutions, dad. They\u2019re the devil\u2019s workshop.\u201d
\n     \u201cDo you enjoy <\/i>alienating yourself from the rest of society? Do you get a high? Because to tell you the truth, this venture has not been easy on your mother and me. You should come to work with me one of these days and see the guilty looks on the faces of my co-workers when I walk into a room after they\u2019ve been speaking slanderously about my family. Your mother gets it too, little snickers at the grocery store and the post office. Forget about me. But your mother has a fragile constitution, Timmy. She\u2019s bi-polar, which is a serious medical condition. One minute she\u2019s singing in the kitchen, fa la la and all that, the next she\u2019s holding a cleaver to my throat. How old is my secretary? How short are her skirts? I\u2019m concerned your little guerilla war will send her over the edge, and no one knows what goes on over the edge, Timmy, except those unlucky persons who are already there. The loonies. Do you know where the loonies live? In the loony bin with other loonies. They play checkers all day and think up ways to give it to the man, which come to think of it, sounds a lot like your average work day. Am I right? Tell me, am I right? Are you a certifiable loony?\u201d
\n     \u201cSigned, sealed, delivered.\u201d
\n     \u201cOh, you really are a piece of work. No shit. Well, here\u2019s to you,\u201d said Cliff, raising his glass and clinking Timmy\u2019s. \u201cHere\u2019s to you and your spectacular bull-shit. Let\u2019s just hope your mother can keep it together. Me? I kind of like the excitement. At my age, you tend to run into one problem, in all areas of your life, and that problem is called same old, same old. Do you know what I\u2019m saying Timmy?\u201d
\n     Timmy had his ins, too. Within a week the local indie rag ran a front-page story on the undercover investigation they\u2019d conducted of the investigation conducted by the Fairfax health department. Within a week, a second health inspector drove in from Roanoke to conduct his own investigation, and found Starfux to be in perfect adherence to all sanitation health codes. The indie paper got a picture of the second health inspector presenting Timmy with his clean bill of health and buying a coffee before driving back to Roanoke. Starfux reopened the next day and sales resumed, if shakily.
\n     Within six months Timmy had courted and eloped with a trophy indie caf\u00e9 bride, a former hippie named Margot with dreadlocks, and sales, thanks to Margot\u2019s business acumen\u2014she\u2019d managed a bagel cart in college\u2014continued steadily for the next year.
\n     When Margot divorced Timmy that summer, citing irreconcilable differences, and financial irresponsibility, Timmy was disconsolate, and called Sandy for advice.
\n     \u201cFeel your loss,\u201d she said. \u201cFeel it! Allow yourself to grieve, but only for one month, and privately. What if I had been more communicative, what if I had been more romantic, just wallow in self-pity like a pig in shit, then get back in the game.\u201d
\n     \u201cIt\u2019s not Margot I\u2019m calling about. It\u2019s the store.\u201d
\n     \u201cI thought the store was doing well.\u201d
\n     \u201cWe have our crowd. But the crowd is getting on my nerves. I didn\u2019t open the store to make some grand royal statement. Counter-culturalism is its own closed system. And it invites a certain, how should I put this, coterie.\u201d
\n     \u201cSo what? Do you think I like every shopper that comes in my store? Some of them are probably convicted felons! You can\u2019t afford to be picky. I don\u2019t care if you\u2019re black, purple, or yellow, money is one color and that color is green.\u201d
\n     \u201cMost of my customers pay with a credit card, Sandy. Credit cards aren\u2019t green. When I made noise about a five dollar minimum, sales dropped twenty percent.\u201d
\n     \u201cFuck those assholes. You gotta have a minimum. If not, you\u2019re just paying someone to stab you and watch you bleed.\u201d
\n     \u201cYou should give seminars.\u201d
\n     \u201cHank\u2019s on a business trip this week, Timmy. I miss you.\u201d
\n     \u201cHow convenient. You are<\/i> crazy. I knew it.\u201d
\n     \u201cTimmy, what\u2019s your ultimate dream?\u201d
\n     \u201cTo open a second store. Then a third.\u201d
\n     \u201cWhat if I told you I could make that happen?\u201d
\n     \u201cI would say you\u2019re lying to me so I\u2019ll fuck you.\u201d
\n     \u201cSatisfying love-making can do a lot for a person, Timmy.\u201d
\n     \u201cI\u2019m not coming over.\u201d
\n     \u201cMaybe not tonight. But you will. You\u2019ll get hungry. You\u2019re hungry now. I can hear it in your voice.\u201d
\n     \u201cThat\u2019s fatigue you\u2019re hearing. I\u2019ve slept about ten hours this week, total.\u201d
\n     \u201cGood luck opening that second store. But you\u2019re going to need more than luck. That\u2019s all I\u2019m saying, Timmy. I know people who know people.\u201d
\n     Timmy thought it over, hard, for a month, and decided not to risk being blown apart with a shotgun by Hank for what was quite likely a bribe with nothing to back it up except a night at the Red Roof with a cougar. Starfux closed shop within the year, whether due to Timmy\u2019s lagging enthusiasm or dwindling sales, no one knew, not even Timmy. The indie rag that enabled Timmy to stay in business ran a front-page spread: Starfux: Just a Dream?<\/i>
\n     A period of conflicted mourning ensued, during which no one in Fairfax patronized any caf\u00e9, instead making specialty drinks with their expresso makers from Bed Bath and Beyond in the privacy of their homes. A rumor spread about Timmy opening a retail outlet called J. Spew, which Timmy put to rest with a public statement: \u201cTo everyone who patronized, even once, Starfux, the now-defunct All-American anti-establishment caf\u00e9 on Nelson Street, which thrived commercially for nearly two years: thank you for exploring not just the unique offerings of my business\u2014which included homemade Danish scones and not just ten but fifty cents off a large drink by answering, not a trivia question, but a question about international trade law, correctly\u2014but the greater gift of heightened civil liberties that you realized by exercising your freedom of choice, a liberty not tantamount in power to the freedom of speech, but commensurate therewith. I am exercising one half of that inextricable freedom\u2014the speech part\u2014today, and wish everyone, including I pledge allegiance to the drivel I\u2019m spoon fed daily just to feel I have one foot in the oh-so-precious status quo drones, all the best.\u201d
\n     Sandy called Timmy the next day. \u201cYou\u2019re an elitist asshole, but you\u2019re also broke and jobless. That\u2019s priceless! Your public statement turned me on, by the way. On fire<\/i>.\u201d
\n     With nothing to lose but his life, Timmy and Sandy made plans to meet at a nearby love-shack. Within minutes of arriving in separate cars, they copulated profusely. \u201cDon\u2019t ask me to leave Hank,\u201d Sandy said suddenly during a smoke break, covers pulled to her chin. Timmy laughed.
\n     \u201cWho says I even want to see you again?\u201d
\n     \u201cYour body.\u201d
\n     \u201cI am not my body. No, I\u2019m more than my body.\u201d
\n     \u201cThat mind over matter reasoning doesn\u2019t last forever. Wait until you\u2019re my age. Wait until gravity\u2014\u201d
\n     \u201cHow old are you, Sandy?\u201d
\n     \u201c46, a woman\u2019s prime. How old are you?\u201d
\n     \u201c33.\u201d
\n     \u201cWelcome to the real world, honey. It\u2019s about time.\u201d
\n     
\n\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013
\nVirginia Konchan<\/strong>\u2019s poems have appeared in The New Yorker<\/em>, the Believer<\/em>, Best New Poets<\/em>, Boston Review<\/em>, and The New Republic<\/em>, among other places, and her fiction in Joyland<\/em> and StoryQuarterly<\/em>. She lives in Chicago, where she is a PhD student in the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
\n      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Timmy\u2019s strengths as a sales associate at Best Buy were few: he was a terrible liar, he couldn\u2019t upsell for shit, and when a young couple walked into the electronics department with a baby, instead of saying \u201cWhat a cute baby! Were you interested in hearing our specials on a plasma or flat-screen TV today?\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-fiction","category-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}