Writing and Reading

I must live up to the legend of the “Unforgivable Rantings”. For this, my friends, is a ‘rant’. In the purest sense of the word. For my first foray into the rant, please, if you will, view this clip from the film “High Fidelity”. I trust you shall enjoy it–

This is what I love about fiction writing: you can vent . Okay, many of you know that I’m a part-time cashier at a grocery store. Specifically today, I had a rough shift. A lot of those kinds of people…that ask stupid…questions. And you know the drill–

CUSTOMER SERVICE. YAY.

Thank you for shopping at [insert store name] (smiles at customer). Have a nice day. May you die of Gonorrhea. I MEAN, NO! No. I mean, WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINEEEEEEEEEESS.

They keep asking those chippery questions that always get me. “Is it always this busy on Saturday?” Just look at that adorably huge smile on that lady’s face! Aaawwww. Makes me want to tear her lips off! Laminate the lips and smack ‘em on the wall, so I can be reminded of their retardation. Yeah.

No. Seriously. It’s never this busy on a Saturday. Only when you come into our store. Would you like a cookie laced with arsenic. Thank you for shopping at (store). Have a nice death.

So in the real world, reality, there’s no way in Hell I could say all the things I wish to say to the customers that constantly squint their eyes at my computer screen to make sure they’ve saved their 50 cents on that bratwurst pack (because dear God, they’ll go bankrupt over the 50 cents). Or how about those customers that always want the paper bags INSIDE the plastic bags and then double-bagged with saran wrap and duct tape for their long trek up the three steps toward their front door? The consequences can be devastating for such reactions to the stupidity of sheep and cattle (a.k.a., our appreciated customers).

That’s what’s so great about fiction: the consequences change by your very whim. That’s why I liked that “High Fidelity” clip. Sure, you want to hold onto realism, too, but the great thing about fiction writing is you can skip the part where you get fired from your job for taking a giant tack hammer and smashing your customer’s head in for giving you back six bags of potato chips, because the indecisive vegetable-brain chose not to buy them, AND jump to the part where you send in a resume for a hot job, like super-cool bartender where all the ladies (or dudes) fawn over you with googly eyes and licking lips.

We all got to relish in the impractical. It’s great fun imagining the customer’s head exploding because they refuse to exercise their vision in actually looking at your lane light and realizing that it is, indeed, OFF, which signifies that your lane is CLOOOOOOOOOOSED. It can’t happen in real life. But it can happen in fiction. Strange, yes. In those cases, not stranger than fiction–

Rather, “fictioner than strange.”