Next Time You Hire A Clerk...

Roxy’s was a store on Kennedy Street north of Portage Avenue, back when such a thing existed. It was in the paper once, Roxy’s, not Kennedy, though Kennedy must have been in the paper occasionally, the street that is, not the president, although here in Montreal there is a President Kennedy Street, which may or may not be in the paper. Anyway, there were people who felt that the window display was sexist and that it objectified women. What they had done, the store people, was this. They took mannequins, plastic ladies, just the bottoms, and dressed them in bikini bottoms, then stuck LPs into the waist band. So people didn’t like that, some people. The store management was unrepentant. And rightly so – it was tasteless perhaps, but there is no law against being tasteless.

I tried to made a swap with them – not the mannequins. The store offered to tape any LP in the store for $10 but I had a better deal. I gave them some LPs, and in return they would tape Bobby’s Big Hits by Bobby Rydell together with some other odds and ends that appealed to me. You have to understand, the LP was selling for about $20; Bobby Rydell’s music was incredibly difficult to find. Ok, so I left there happy, and came back after the specified interval, and found a woman behind the cash, and I inquired about my tape and she knew nothing about it. Who did you talk to she said. The manager I said. Did he have a beard she asked. Oh yes. Oh she said. My CLERK. She looked contemptuous. I will look into it she said. Come back later.

I went back and the “clerk” handed me my blank tape and the LPs I’d left for him. Couldn’t do it he said. I was disappointed, and I took my stuff and left. Later I brought the tape back, and there was another clerk, and I gave him $10 and asked him to tape the Bobby Rydell.

Fast forward I don’t remember how many years. Roxy’s was long gone. Guy walks into my office, charged with petty theft. He had taken magazines from the Coles at Eaton Place and had forgotten to pay. He walked as far as the escalator in the concourse, realized what he’d done, turned around to go back, and got nabbed my store security. After I’d met with him a few times, and we’d gone to court for adjournments and such, I remember who he was. You used to work at that stored on Kennedy I said. Roxy’s he said. I owned it. Owned it? The clerk? I kept quiet.

We set the matter down for trial. His wife came to support him. Yup, it was the same woman. For the life of me, I have no idea what that was about.

He was convicted…