The Dream All Customer Service Employees Share

    Before you read this next post you should have a little background information.  My expensive BA  degree opened up many doors for me, doors that led to the glamorous world of retail;  I'm positive that many of you are in the exact same boat.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the working lives of those in the customer service industry, you should know that we pretty much see people at their worst; apparently most people think "service" is the same thing as "servant".  Long story short, working as customer service of any kind is rather soul crushing.  The following dream appears to be a manifestation of my unconscious desires.

    Marshall and I owned a decent sized, modern house that had a smaller, second house attached.  Apparently we were starved for more torture than our customer service jobs could provide us, so we decided to open up our own clothing store in the smaller house.  The small house was one floor and actually didn't have a kitchen, which made converting it into a store much easier.  We made some alterations so that we had a hall full of fitting rooms; the hall itself was very wide and at the end of the hall was a wall of windows with a clear door in the middle, but that door was always locked.
    One evening we were technically already closed but, of course, we still had two people in the fitting rooms.    Anyone who works in retail knows exactly how annoying that can be; so I was straightening things and grumbling about the customers when I heard some strange noises.

I like to think this references either the fate of rude customers or what working in retail actually is.

At first I assumed the noises were just regular obnoxious customers noises but then there was screaming.  I looked around but Marshall had already left the store to go do some studying.  I walked hesitantly toward the fitting rooms and the scream became two screams, so I ran.  The scene that unfolded before me was both baffling and horrific; the glass door was open, one customer was standing in front of his room screaming and pointing,  and fleeing the scene was a huge bear with the other customer in its mouth.  I stood there, doing nothing, and completely in shock as the oddly polite bear shut the door behind it.  

We tracked down the bear and had a conversation with him later over a picnic lunch.

    As the bear disappeared into the night so did the customer disappear into his fitting room; suddenly composed I metaphorically shrugged my shoulders and went back to straightening the store.  The remaining customer came out of the fitting rooms and asked me for some different sizes of various articles of clothing and I gently reminded him that we were closed while still grabbing the clothes for him.  He went back to his fitting room and I impatiently waited behind the cash register, furiously willing him to spend at least one hundred dollars.  As I mused upon my life's mistake of opening up my own clothing store to forever spend my life doing customer service I heard screams again.  This time I ran as fast as I could, right away, to the fitting rooms and a more grisly scene awaited me.  Heh heh, grisly.  

    There was blood everywhere.  The bear was back and held the top half of the customer in its jaws; it stared at me for a moment before loping out the door, this time leaving it open.  That's about when I lost it.  I ran to the main house and, in hysterics, told Marshall what happened.  What was I supposed to do in this situation?  Who do I call? 911?  But the people were missing except for two legs.  The police?  Animal control?!?  We ran back over to the fitting rooms and the first thing we noticed was that the glass door was shut again, the blood was gone, and so was the rest of the customer.  

    Marshall decided I must have dozed off and dreamed the whole thing, and he went back to studying.  I saw small specks of blood still on the floor and the customers' clothes were still in the fitting rooms.  Nonplussed, I sat down in front of the glass door and peered into the night; all I could think about was why the bear was so polite.  Does that make my dream self a sociopath?

And that's when I woke up.