PetCo

“Hi, this is Lowell, I need to get my schedule for this week.” I was coming off vacation and didn’t know when I worked.

“You need to call Jim.” Jim was the district manager, and I knew it was a bad sign that I’d be calling him for my schedule. I dialed his number.

“Yeah Jim, this is Lowell.” My dislike of name tags had inspired me to use my middle name at this job.

“Yeah, Lowell, you’re working out in Natomas now.” He whined. “I have a sexual harrassment charge on you.”

Sexual Harassment! Oh crap. There were plenty of cute high school kids working for me and they all flirted but I’d not responded to their baby talk offers of shoulder rubs once. “Jim, who said I sexually harrased them?”

“Did you say Fuck while talking to Stacey?”

Sure I had, lot’s of times. Stacey was our foul mouthed dog groomer and I loved swapping stories with her. She’d blown up at me for not doing her commisions fast enough on the day before my vacation and after convincing her to step back inside the grooming room I’d asked her what the fuck she was doing yelling at me in front of customers. I guess she won this argument.

“Jim, I did, but not in any sexual way. I asked her what the fuck she was doing.”

“She didn’t claim it was sexual. In fact she specifically said, in writing that it wasn’t. But she says the word made her uncomfortable so you’re getting a transfer.” Wow. So much power in one stupid little word. “Lowell, I don’t give a fuck if you curse, but don’t do it in front of more than one employee. No witnesses no problem.”

The witnesses were the two other groomers both of whom contacted me to tell me how sorry they were. They knew that Stacey was being petty but when asked point blank if I had said “Fuck” they were afraid to lie.

Stacey had no idea how hard she was hitting me. The Natomas store was ran by an uptight hideous young dog breeder name Janie. My life was to become hell! Stacey had won, but I cursed her Karma with every breath.

I had applied at PetCo and every other pet store in town durring the days after I quit The Fish Compay, desperate to find work in a hurry. I turned in my my modified and souped up resume. I was interviewed by the exhausted and joyless district manager Jim and I got the job. Amazingly enough I was happy about it. I would have to wear a uniform, a name tag, and work for a faceless corporation, and I was happy. I was thrilled actually. The job paid well and I figured it would be brainless but most important, Bryna’s schooling would not be interrupted and I’d proven that I could take care of business.

Wearing a uniform and name tag were a drag but I loved helping people take care of their pets and I got a kick out of the kids I worked with. They would invite me to play catch in the back werehouse and I didn’t even mind when I figured out that I was invited because I “Threw like a girl” and this provided some laughs.

I became close with a young Christian kid named Zach. Zach had a bumper sticker on his car reading “The Big Bang Theory: God said it and BANG it happened”. He was open and curious about the world despite his fear of god and his taste for really stupid bumper stickers.

Zach’s girlfriend was adorable and they were experimenting, as kids will do, stopping just short of commiting original sin as they understood it. Zach was concerned as she made the most out of their restricting themselves, discovering that she loved spanking, and being tied up. I couldn’t help thinking that maybe all relationships should start this way. It would work out better for the woman it seemed.

One day Zach came to me looking forlorne. “Hey Lowell, can I talk to you.” We got some coffee next door at Petes and he asked me if having a finger inserted in your ass while getting a blow job from a woman meant you were gay. “I mean, if, like you know, you enjoy it.”

I held in my laughter somehow and fixed him with a serious look. “Zach, how many fingers are we talking about?”

“Just one.”

“One? Oh thank god. You’re fine dude. Two would mean you were probably bi, and three is homo city, next stop fisting, but one… one is straight man.”

“You’re making fun of me aren’t you?”

“Yes. C’mon Zach! Don’t worry about it. Your body has all kinds of buttons and bells and whistles. When you get to heaven you can ask god why he made that feel good, but in the meanwhile, have fun. You’re lucky that girl of yours is so adventurous man. Now buy me another shot of espresso.”
A red headed associate named Paul told me that all the employees were debating about weather I “partied” or not. I asked him what he thought.

“I think you have, but I’m guessing you don’t now.” I just smiled and kept working. Paul was a smart one.

Brandon struck me as bright and destined to become something more than a PetCo employee. He was a well spoken Mexican kid who did not relate to the slacker kids he had to work with. Brandon came to me complaining that the guys he had to work with were dicks and gave him a buch of shit when he was the only one working. In another setting he’d have kicked their asses without breaking a sweat, but he was as work and he actually cared about being professional. I pulled a story out of my ass.

“Brandon, when I was a kid my grandpa took me to the zoo. I was all excited to see the monkeys but when we reached their cage they all pointed at me and they seemed to be laughing. I started to cry and this enouraged the monkeys more and now they were definitely laughing, howling even. I ran away and my grandpa caugh up with me. ‘Keith, why are you crying? Who gives a shit what a bunch of fuckin’ monkey’s think?’”

Brandon got my point and learned to be a bit more concieted.

I said goodbye to the kids and headed to Janie’s house of misery. As if Janie herself wasn’t bad enough her store had been robbed by a man with a gun three times already.

I did my best to get along with this stange woman. She was sure our one black employee it this largely black neighborhood was a gang member because he wore baggy pants and an afro pick in his hair. I pointed out that he ate lunch too, which I’d heard many gangster do but Janie didn’t get it.

Janie spent most of her time in the office running her dog breeding business. She shipped frozen dog sperm all over the world. I couldn’t help asking how this sperm was harvested, and the answer was that yes, some pour soul does indeed make a living jerking off spoiled and pampered dogs. Funny that this is legal but performing the same service on lonely men is a crime.

I grew more miserable by the day and I started looking for a way out. While at the other store I’d hired a man who was developmentally disabled to help out with the floors and assembling dog crates. I really enjoyed working with Perry and when Dianne, the woman who had brought him to me came into Janie’s store asking if we could use help there I told her now way. Nobody deserved to work for this hideous woman. I asked about getting a job as a job coach, helping the developmentally disabled learn their jobs and
Dianne helped me get on at In Alliance.

I was coming up on my two year anniversery at Petco and I wanted my vacation check so I stuck it out for the month, training at In Alliance on my days off. Janie fought me to the last day, so afraid I’d try to get away with som horid crime, like sitting down for a minute while on the clock. Sit down a did. I wrote her three pages of sincere heartfelt advice on how to be less miserable. I filed it deep in the computer, titling it “work”. She found it within a day of my leaving. This was a clear sign of an obsessive woman.

I’d promised my friend Allen that I’d let him fill his school bus full of freaks and dry ice smoke. He would pull up in front of Petco on my last day and I’d climb up on top of the bus, take off my uniform shirt and name tage which I’d light on fire. Then we’d ride off into the sunset, free at last. Instead I left relatively quietly and as sure as ever that corporate America and I did not get along.

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