Sam Pink - The No Hellos Diet

Sometimes you just answer no even if that’s not true.

You’ll type in a few buttons and say, “Uh, looks like no. We don’t have any more. I’m sorry.”

The man looks at the vacuum again, not saying anything.

“No more,” you say again, in a friendly but firmly-settled way.

“Not at all huh? Darn,” he says, making a playful face of disappointment.

“No more of those, sorry,” you say, making a similar face.

Even though it’s not your fault and you’re not sorry.

Part of your pay comes from apologizing.

You entertain a violent fantasy of you and the man together in a bathroom, where you take stabs at his head with a cheap knife, and the blade is so cheap it keeps skipping off his skull, but still cuts deep.

He’s still looking at the vacuum.

He says, “Alright well, I might just come in tomorrow or later this week to see if it’s come in yet. I live nearby.” He puts up both his hands with his fingers and thumbs out—“It’s, sooo great you guys opened this place. Really great for the neighborhood.”

You don’t tell him it wasn’t you who opened the store, that some other people did, the owners.

And you don’t tell him that the neighborhood is good for the store, otherwise the owners wouldn’t have opened it.

Because his eyebrows are perfect shapes — you think. Because he’s friendly, and really understanding. Because he handled disappointment well. Not getting a new vacuum might cripple someone else. Send them into a crippling vertigo of despair. Not him though. His corduroy pants shield him from the crippling vertigo of despair.

“I really wanted this vacuum,” he says, “so, I will, be back here for sure.”

He smiles by flexing his bottom lip, tapping his fingers on the carthandle.

“You wanted this vacuum, right here,” you say, pointing at the model.

“That one,” he says.

You check the upc code and the model again, acting like you’re using your thumb to closely read the upc.

“This one right here,” you say.

He clicks his tongue. “That one.”

You say, “Looks like a pretty good one. Like just, a good overall vacuum. I don’t know that much about it, but I mean.”

He starts biting the nail on his thumb. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ve heard it’s really good. The commercials are pretty impressive.”

“Looks like it could do a good job,” you say. “At least, that’s what I’m thinking.”

“No, yeah, the guy who invented it is supposed to be like, this genius.”

“Uh oh.”

“Yeah supposedly,” he says, opening his eyes wide then returning them to normal wideness.

“Well he must be a genius to have invented such a great vacuum,” you say, raking your front teeth over the hair directly below your bottom lip. “Don’t you think.”

“Yeah, of course,” he says, “I mean my condo is screaming for this little number.”

“What little number,” you say.

“The vacuum,” he says.

“Oh nice. Did your last vacuum stop working. What happened.”

“No,” he says, “Just didn’t have the type of power I need right now in a vacuum, specifically. Plus it was clunky and loud.”

You sneeze.

You say, “And then you came here and we didn’t have the one you wanted — man.”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Man, sorry,” you say. “I wish — wait”—you pause and type some numbers into the laser gun again— “Ah, nope. Thought I might’ve typed in the wrong number before.”

You imagine the man returning tomorrow in a slightly different combination of the same clothes he’s in now — picking up the newly stocked vacuum and buying it — driving it home in the passenger side seat of his car, seatbelt across its box — bringing it into his house — opening the box — vacuuming with a slight smile on his face — vacuuming thoroughly, without stopping for a long time.

But secretly, he’s never happy with any vacuum.

He’s never, fucking, happy.

So he blames the vacuum.

Always looking for a different kind, a kind that will work like he wants.

“Alrighty, no problem,” he says, walking away.

It’s unclear how much time has passed in silence.

You look at the display model of the vacuum the man wanted.

A salesfloor employee told you a while ago that customers can’t buy the models because the models aren’t functional.

Looking at the nonfunctioning model, you imagine yourself without any inside parts — like organs or veins or genitals.

Then you realize you can only imagine that idea by using all your inside parts.

It’s fucking weird.

You’re fake.

*

On your lunch break you’re eating an apple, sitting at a table with an uncomfortable amount of other people at it.

There’s a lower level manager, a girl sitting next to you, a bald man with a beard, and some other people.

The girl next to you is reading a magazine for women that talks about exercising, and has sexual quizzes, and advertisements, and other things.

“‘Right before his very thighs,’” you say, reading off the magazine. “‘How to find secret pleasure spots on him, pg. 43.’”

The girl opens her eyes wide and starts turning pages. “Ooh, should we read ‘The top five signs he’s an alpha male.’”

“Yeah, top five signs,” you say.

The lower level manager is eating food from the food area at the store.

It’s a pizza made small so as to be for one person.

A miniature pizza.

He picks up a piece of the miniature pizza and bites it.

Then he takes a napkin from the stack in front of him and wipes his fingers and goatee.

“Wow this is the first time I’ve bought a pizza here that actually had sauce on it,” he says, to no one. Then he addresses the entire table, and says, “Alright so, if you absolutely had to, would you be able to eat another human.”

The bald man with a beard is also eating a miniature pizza and there’s sauce on his moustache.

When he hears the question, he lowers his eyebrows and nods.

“Oh hell yeah I would,” he says. “Hell yeah. No question. Don’t be stupid. But it’s like, what part would you eat though. Like in what order. I think the ass probably has the most meat. The ass is just all meat, man.”

The lower level manager says, “The legs seem appealing to me for some reason, I don’t know. It’s weird.”

You straighten up in your seat, elbows on the table. “Albert Fish said ass meat was his favorite. He wrote letters to his friend about it.”

The girl reading the magazine says, “Ass meat”— still turning pages looking for an article.

The bald bearded guy says, “Well, are we talking about kids or what are we talking about.”

The girl reading the magazine says, “We’re talking about ass meat.”

Chavon is sitting at the end of the table.

She’s sharing a set of in-ear headphones with the guy next to her, and he’s got his head down bobbing to the music.

Chavon says, “Me, I’m straight eating fingers right away.”

Then she makes — what you decide to be — a “gobbling motion” with her hands and mouth, and the headphone falls out of her ear.

You laugh.

Chavon laughs.

She points at you and says, “Texas knows it. Look at’yo special ass. This motherfucker special.”

The lower level manager delicately bites a portion of his miniature pizza and repeats his napkin wiping routine.

He says, “Yeah I’d do like, the calf muscles first, I think. Get a good meal out of that first.”

You think about biting a calf muscle as hard as you can.

Getting on hands and knees and crawling out into the store, finding someone who’s looking at a product on the shelves, then biting their calf muscle as hard as you can, shaking your head a little to make it rip.