Broken Record

My new favourite staff member at my corporate bookshop is a delightful creature who I have nicknamed ‘Vinyl Bitch.’ She is a tall, awkward looking girl with a sour face; the kind of girl who makes any mother’s heart sink a little when her son arrives with her, arm in arm, at the family Christmas dinner. I imagine she would sit sulkily in the corner, texting and picking resentfully at her roast potatoes.

On my first day, I smiled as widely as I could and introduced myself. She managed a grumpy “hi” and then stalked off to stack the travel section. It wasn’t until about 5’o clock that I managed to crack her into her zeal. Stranded at registers, we were rescued by a customer purchasing a CD of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars. VB scanned it and stared the customer—a small balding man in a cheap suit—triumphantly in the eye.

“I’ve got this on vinyl,” she stated, almost smiling, and then went back to being a bitch.

For the rest of the day, whenever I was within her auditory sphere, I name-dropped a list of classic albums, each one concluded with VB turning, sneering and affirming “Yeah well, I’ve got that on vinyl.” The only exception seemed to be with the mention of several obscure albums which prompted the reaction “Yeah, I really want to get that on vinyl.” Sometimes when we stand together at the registers, I hum ‘You Spin Me Right Round (Like a Record)’ under my breath. She pretends not to hear me.

VB’s work attire consists of tight jeans, tall boots and an endless parade of dull, grey cardigans adorned with indie rock badges. These badges are the one thing that seems to signal VB’s daily weather report: If she’s in a boring daily sour mood, the badges tend towards the sunny sixties pop of The Beatles or acoustic Bob Dylan. On a rainy Wednesday, when shop morale and sales are at their lowest, Joy Division and Nirvana can be spotted on the grey lapels. On Friday, things seem to pick up again; The Clash often makes an appearance, Led Zeppelin, The Pixies. The Sex Pistols pop up from time to time, Jimi Hendrix is also a regular. VB declines the weekly offer of a beer with the rest of the staff but instead mutters something about seeing her friend’s band, The Joan Crawfords, at a basement bar in Collingwood. No one is invited to join her. She stalks out the store, arms hanging by her side, headphones in her ears, ‘Comfortably Numb’ blaring out for anyone to hear.

VB has a boyfriend called Brendan: an aspiring writer who works at a stationary warehouse. She is constantly on the phone to him in the lunch room, staring furiously at any other staff member whose voice is raised above the appropriate level. Their conversations tend toward the lacklustre end of the spectrum, with phrases like “yeah well, whatever” and “I’ve seen it; it’s lame” peppered throughout. Once, he was sighted at the front entrance, a good looking guy with a chubby face and a leather satchel. He was halfway through a conversation with Jenny, the well toned merchandise manager, when the VB marched to the front of the shop, red faced. She gave Jenny a look that would wither a patch of daffodils and dragged Brendan away, hissing “come ON.” The next day, Patti Smith and Pearl Jam glowered out from the grey Cardigan.

The other day, I asked VB if she would consider getting a badge featuring the late 90s pop sensations ‘The Cardigans’ and consequently have Cardigans on her cardigan. She glared at me contemptuously for a good 30 seconds and then told me that you probably couldn’t even get The Cardigans on vinyl; “that’s how shit they are.”

I think I kind of love her.