When I was in high school, I worked as a teller at a bank. Our group of tellers ranged from Gen-X slacker guy to prissy trophy-wife-in-waiting to clueless yes-man. But there was one employee who stopped the other cliche coworkers in their tracks: the angry, bitter, unmarried, old hag. And since I was the young, (cute?) ditzy girl, I was her natural enemy. She hated me and wished I was dead. I know this because one time she said, “Kat, I hate you and I wish you were dead.”
One night, we worked the late shift together, so it was just the two of us alone. Since most banks close at 5:00, most people were unaware that ours stayed open until 7:00, so business was always slow to non-existent. We were starting to balance our drawers o’ cash and per usual, I had fucked something up.
Angry, bitter, unmarried, old hag was losing her patience with me. She unleashed her fury upon me (this had happened before, no biggie), a fury which occurred little in her actions and even less in her voice, but in her face. Her mouth was taut, her forehead scrunched, and from her eyes shot invisible lasers that ricocheted off of every surface in the bank.
She was having her way with me for longer than my tiny attention span could allow me to pretend to keep listening, so my eyes began to wander. I looked at her distorted face, her bland, graying hairdo, her thrift-store polyester bow-collared shirt… and then my eyes wandered to her neck.
Out of her neck grew a hair. One. Long. Creepy. Hair. How could she not notice that? It was dark like a pube and at least three-quarters of an inch long. Good God! She obviously spent some amount of time in front of a mirror getting ready for her day. How could she not see it!? It was really driving me crazy that someone could let one long creepy hair just grow and grow and not do anything about it. Maybe the lighting in her bathroom was bad? Maybe she didn’t know? Maybe she wanted someone to tell her? I’d want someone to tell me. It’s like having spinach in your teeth or toilet paper stuck on your shoe. It’s embarrassing. I’d be glad if someone told me. I’d probably invest in a better mirror and well-lit environment. But angry, bitter, unmarried, old hag probably wouldn’t take it so well. She’d get even angrier… I shouldn’t tell her. Or should I?
“Kat. KAT! Are you listening to me? Do you understand what I’m saying? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Um—I uh… I was…,” I stammered. My eyes grew really wide like someone was giving me an enema. Then I quickly regained my composure and said in a rapid, high voice, “I wasn’t looking at you like anything. Hair.”
Her face relaxed slightly and she looked at me strangely for a second. But before I could yell out, “YOU HAVE A FUCKING PUBE GROWIN’ OUT THE SIDE OF YER NECK!” the bell sounded, alerting us that a customer had entered the drive-thru, and she rushed to assist him.
I never did tell her, and that’s probably why I’m still alive right now.