Business as usual?

“Which one of you made my mother angry the other day?” I ask.

Sheepish smile twitch-twitch on the pale, open and friendly face of the nice guy collecting me payment. Wasn’t he who been rude though.

I know who the rude one was, he been rude to me at one time too but embarrassment did make me let it slide. There he is standing, titivating at computer, back turned to we. Only nice thing about he is he sleek, straight blue-black hair, excuse for narcissism, I bet.

“Oh man, she went home fuuuuuming,” I continue. I shouldn’t tease the nice guy like this, he is friendly, polite. But mischief is me li’l dog with a wagging tail, following me everywhere.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” he collect me money and try to hurry away politely, leave me grinning.

The whole joke start one Saturday morning after we been to market then to pay a bill. Too early, I say, let we wait in the car. El Nino sun make we skin feel like it melting. People waiting outside the office door. I leave the car, chat with them. They quarrel about the erratic opening times of this business. Nine a.m. now. Mummy, let we go home, I say.

Monday my mother return. “What sort of sloppy business are you boys running? You really need to shape up, be more professional. Quite a few customers were out here waiting on Saturday morning.”

She musta ruffle the ego of the sleek hair fella. “We work late the Friday night before so we come in late the next morning!” he say in a defiant tone.

Reenacting the encounter for me, my mother put on she angry elderly person speaking to rude young man voice. “When you’re running a business, you have to be considerate towards your customers, you can’t have them waiting like that...it’s not their fault that you worked late, you must make some sort of arrangement to meet their needs, people plan their day, they have other business to do.”

My mother talking fast-fast now. Awrite, calm down, take it easy, I say, but she too worked up. “You know what that arrogant wretch say to me? You can’t come here and tell people how to run their business. I say, listen to me young man, don't tell ME about business. I ran a business once, I know about running a business and working late. I used to work until midnight sometimes but I was up at dawn to make sure that the store was opened on time for customers. I couldn’t open whenever I chose and inconvenience them. Haven’t you heard of something called options? Customers can go elsewhere.”

She pause to get the timing just right. “Haven’t you heard that the customer is always right?"

“What he say?” I ask.

“He just back away, he ain’t say nothing. The nice one say, awright, awright, sorry about that…”