let me be clear-I’m a vest guy

First off, let me be clear-I’m a vest guy. I like them. There, I said it.
There was a time when they were common. That time is gone. Today when you see one, it’s an oddity.

I had to be at a retirement party in one hour so I had time to kill. I drove past a Staples and remembered we were out of printing paper.
I parked, tossed my suit jacket on the seat and went in.

Near the paper aisle I saw clipboards. They come in handy at home when I’m writing so I grabbed one.
When I turned back to the paper stacks a woman came up to me.

“Hi, I have a question about the office furniture,” she smiled.

I held my clipboard close to my body so she wouldn’t see it was empty. “Sure. What’s up?”

“Does the furniture come with free delivery?”

“Yes. Absolutely,” I answered confidently.

“Is there an amount I need to spend to get it delivered free?”

“No.” I saw myself in the angled security mirrors they have high on the wall. The vest and the clipboard did the trick. It was like a retail manager Halloween costume.

“Really? Wow, that’s great. I need some stuff.”

I glanced down at my clipboard then at my watch.

“Oh, I won’t keep you…”

“No, that’s fine. I just have a meeting soon. Anything else?”

“What about assembly?”

“What about it?”

“Does Staples offer it for the furniture? I know IKEA has assemblers.”

“We do, but it’s different from IKEA’s. IKEA charges for assembly but we don’t charge because you have to help.”

“Help what?”

“Help put it together. The delivery guys do it but they’re not really trained at it so we ask the customer to help them. That’s why it’s free- like a courtesy. If you want them to do it by themselves it’ll be $49 but we won’t guarantee it’ll be right- or safe to sit on.”

She let that sink in then craned her neck to look at my clipboard. Blank as a baby’s soul.
“Do you work here?”

“No.” I answered promptly with the same authority I used all along.

“What are you, an asshole?!”

I paused to work on a defense but came up empty. “Kinda.”

She blew past me deliberately hitting my arm.
I watched her go to a cashier who turned and looked at me.

Time to go.

I put the pack of paper down and headed for the door.
Before I ditched the clipboard, so help me God, a well-dressed man walked up to me with a big smile, “Well you’re here early.”

I shook his hand. “I know.”

“Where are you from?”

“Elmont.” Same confidence I gave the woman before because technically it’s true.

“Really? There’s a Staples in Elmont?”

“Maybe.” I shrugged my shoulders.

“Maybe?” His smile disappeared. “Are you the transfer?”

“No.” I smiled and gave him a wink which confused the crap out of him.

“What the Hell?”

The cashier couldn’t leave her station and it looked like she sent a clerk to alert this guy that I was an impostor and an asshole.
Before he made it to us, I put the clipboard on a display of highlighters and headed out empty handed.

“Sit down, it already started,” Nancy said as I walked in to the restaurant.

“Sorry. I’d have been here sooner but I stopped for printer paper.”

“Oh, ok, good. We were out of it.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t get any.”

“You just said you stopped for it.”

“Um…”

She put her hand up to stop me. She knew she didn’t want to hear it.