Melinda's world...

I’ve written a lot about Bill recently, but I want to make sure I’m giving readers a good representation of the rich tapestry of the bizarre we have running the register at the porn store.

Hiring new employees at a porn store always results in a mixed bag of applicants, but with Bill as manager, the pool of potential clerks is even more depressing.

The owners always encourage hiring older applications. This is stupid because the only person in their 40s who wants to work at an adult bookstore/head shop is either a pervert or a junkie (sometimes both). Bill is obsessed with hiring women because he’s a 500 pound social moron who would never be exposed to women otherwise. Unfortunately for both, we didn’t get any mature women applying to work behind the counter.

The hiring process went like this; Bill had to fax all the applications to the main office in a different city. The owner returned a list of five applicants for Bill to interview. After he interviewed these candidates, he was to fax his “interview notes” back to the main office for the owner to make a final decision. I mention this because Bill writes in barely legible, all-capitals, so each interviewee’s “notes” ended up being 5 pages long with words like, “HAS KID” and, “NOT MARRIED” scrawled on the top of each sheet.

(The owners apparently failed to explain with Bill what the legal factors are you can consider when hiring an employee.)

When Bill was finally told who to hire, he ended up and hiring the wrong woman. (To be fair, when referring to women, Bill has said, “they all look alike to me.” And both female applicants were blonde.) The regional manager noticed the mistake, chewed Bill out, but allowed the wrong person to be hired since she had already planned on starting the following morning.

I really, really try to keep myself from having preconceived notions about people before I meet them. This being said, I had my doubts that a woman who wants to work at a porn store would be particularly intelligent. But I had no idea that the new employee would be (almost) as stupid as Bill.

Melinda has cancer. Or rather, she had cancer. She can’t remember, but her doctor says that she’s okay now. (This exchange happened in the first five minutes of our meeting. There’s nothing like starting conversations with light, comfortable subjects.)

I assumed her cancer diagnosis had something to do with her rotting teeth. She didn’t so much have teeth, but more black nubs that stuck out of her gums. In addition to being a focal point every time I looked at her, it also made her breath smell like rotting meat. She noticed that I kept looking at her mouth and explained that her poor oral hygiene was not the result of her cancer (or past cancer… I’m still not sure if she’s dying).

When she was 17, she got pregnant shortly after dropping out of high school. Her parents were incredibly disappointed and let her know that they had always expected this to happen to their daughter. She also explained that she didn’t even know what sex was before her boyfriend talked her into it. Melinda honestly thought the baby was going to come out of her ass. I said that her parents should have expected her to get pregnant if they never bothered to teach her about sex while growing up. She got really indignant when I said this and replied, “Oh really? Are YOU going to talk to YOUR kids about sex,” and smiled with the smugness of someone who has just won a complex debate.

I wanted to make myself perfectly clear about my thoughts on this matter. I took a deep breath and said, “YES! Teaching your children about sex is one of the greatest and most important responsibilities a parent has, especially when their child is old enough to start having sex. I’d go so far to say that these lessons are just as important as helping your children with their school work and making sure they understand proper nutrition.”

This obviously wasn’t the response she had expected from me and she turned away, a little hurt, before turning back and asking me something about football.

Shortly after she started, the Minnesota Vikings spring training camp had begun at their normal location at Mankato State University. Offensive tackle, Korey Stringer passed out during practice on a particularly hot afternoon and ended up dying from complications of heat stroke. This was a shock to most football fans and the first time something like this had happened during NFL spring training, let alone in Minnesota.

Two days after Stringer’s death, I took the store garbage out to the parking lot dumpster and ended up getting pelted with a huge stack of notebook paper when I opened the top. As I collected the loose sheets that were flying around the empty lot next to the store, I started to notice what was written on them. Melinda had written at least 30 different poems, mourning the death of this beloved Minnesota Vikings player. Over and over, I came across sheets with statements like, “Always a hero, never a zero,” I’m having a hard time dealing with this,” and, “Why god, why?”

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a terrible thing that Korey Stringer died, but it’s hardly the event that should result in anything more than a remark of, “That’s so terrible.” I hope it will make coaches take greater care when practicing during hot days, but it doesn’t affect my life in the slightest. Obviously, Melinda’s life was obviously organized in a way that placed football players very highly in her hierarchy of importance.

Considering this is a woman who believed she was going to “shit out” her baby, I probably shouldn’t be surprised.