So for one summer I worked at this place called Moosejaw Mountaineering. It's a store that sells camping gear, and, if you know the right guy, hash. I like to build most of my relationships on lies, and in Moosejaw's case, the lie was that I had gone camping before. Well, it wasn't really a lie, more of a miscommunication. In the interview, when I said I had "spent some time living off the land" specifically, I meant "sleeping in the dog park with a bow & arrow." I started fires and stuff, but I guess it still wasn't applicable.
And they figured me out almost immediately, like the first day. Behind the register they had this huge wall of carabiners and other shiny rock-climbing crap. When I saw it I said "Man...we have a lot of key chains." Yeah. So the cat was out of the proverbial scrotum, and it took about a week for everyone that worked there to start hating me, even the guy I bought tons of hash from. See at Moosejaw, the staff is encouraged to tell invigorating anecdotes to the customers, drawing from our wealth of outdoor experience. And even though the other employees were all serious climbers and backpackers, my stories were way better because I was just making shit up.
(me) "I see you found the RX-1700, you got a good eye, I summited Kilimanjaro with that model and four rubber bands."
(customer) "This is a kayak paddle"
(me) "...If you know a better way to carry Sherpas, I'd like to hear it"
As it turned out I sold tons of stuff, because customers don't want to hear a bunch of technical crap that makes them feel stupid, they want to be right and feel good.
(customer) "What's this loop on the side of the backpack for, attaching another backpack?"
(me) "Exactly...attaching another backpack."
People buy things for the stupidest fucking reasons imaginable, and all you have to do is give them that reason. "So are you happy with this fetching navy one that matches your piercing blue eyes? Because it also comes in communist-red and Jesus-black." Sold. "This tent is bear-proof, that one makes you look fat." Sold. It was a really easy job.
And the constant bullshitting made my daily routine completely surreal. It was like living in an episode of Saved by the Bell, only with less black people (which is saying something, because that's just Lisa Turtle). The one Asian guy working there had to hold down the ethnic diversity teeter-totter all by himself, and he only put in like 15 hours a week. So I would get high, clock in, and then lie to folks all day long about items their life might soon depend on.
Eventually, I sold some guy an ice axe that I had been using as a bottle opener, and I started to feel kinda guilty. I kept waiting for somebody to storm in after me because a bear ate their kid while he was sleeping in a bear-proof tent, but it never happened. Don't get me wrong, I got fired, and for a very good reason. Just not that one.
It was about an hour from close, and I got a call from an ex who was in town. That's always great, it's like getting a royalty check for some song you wrote twenty years ago. Anyway, she said she was picking me up and taking me to her friend's place--awesome. Problem was, I was foul. I hadn't showered, I was all sweaty from the day's deception, and just generally in no condition to enter a social situation, let alone another human being.
I went to the employee bathroom to spray myself down with air freshener, and stumbled upon salvation--the sink, beckoning me like a desert oasis. The perfect porcelain birdbath for my penis, taunting me with prophecies of blowjobs that end after 12 seconds, and set off a gossip A-bomb that gives me shame cancer. In what I still consider a chivalrous act, I ran some warm water and began bathing my little sparrow like an infant. Predictably, a fellow employee walked in on me, and for the first time in that building, I told the truth. "OK, I know how this looks, but I wasn't peeing in the sink, I was just washing my smelly dick." Game over, thanks for playing. I got fired the next day for gross misconduct, which has never been more literal. In summation, lying is a viable life strategy, and only wash your dick in the sink at home.