don charles

Uniform Man (short story) - #47

*if seeing this in your email, click on the title for a richer viewing experience*

Hello Friends!

Watch at your own will. 9min 55sec in one take, one shot. Topics include: Kava, improved mental health, exercise, why this newsletter was delayed, major self-reflections on 2020.

One more thing I didn’t cover in the video:

Photo by Rodrigo dos Reis on Unsplash

“I’ve always been obtuse towards the unique,” I uttered to her. “A brown paper suit in the morning is my bread and butter. And soon, it’ll be yours too.”

“Is that so?” she retorted. Nancy had a feathering of pet dandruff covering her zipper jacket; behind her, a floor-to-ceiling window that showed a birds-eye-view of the blue-collared slackjaws spanning the factory floor like ants — all wearing sports coats and Carhartt weatherings. Her office was sparse — a concrete box with a computer running Vista — in other words: A perfect sell.

She was saying something; I’m not sure what it was. “Sorry,” I interrupted, “I was admiring your office — what did you say?” 

“I said — I’ll have to think about it.”

“Let me put our CINTAS Uniform Program in simple language: We give you the work clothes — how many workers do you have?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Twenty-three? So that would be sixty-nine uniforms. Sixty-nine uniforms to trade out over a period of a few weeks. Your branding, your logo, would be on our American made, open-source, vegan-free jackets built with our revolutionary weather resistant technology. ‘Nancy Bougratski Industries’, embroidered right on the jacket, or whatever this place is called. On Fridays, my guys will pick up the uniforms. And on Mondays, they’ll drop it all off, fresh from our state of the art, hypo-allergenic, 128-bit encrypted clothes washing facilities.”

Her phone rang. I paused. “I’ll call you back,” she said. And hung up the phone.

“Anyways,” I continued, “the usual would be forty dollars per week per employee, but if you sign today, I’ll throw in our 600 thread count, fully durable, Veteran manufactured work pants — for free. But — you must sign today. And if you’re still doubtful, that’s okay — even though we are rated as one of the best, if not the best, worker-uniform programs in the country, that’s okay — and so what if we only charge forty dollars per week per employee? I will, today, and today only, put forth a proposal: a free trial — two full weeks of the uniform program. And if you’re not satisfied, that’s okay — just call me, and I’ll pack up shop and get out of your hair. But for all this to happen, you must sign today.”

I knew Nancy couldn’t pass up a steal. In a few weeks, my phone will be ringing; she’ll be telling me how happy her Juans and Joses are; how in God’s name she didn’t think of something like this before -- but ah! It was, Nancy! It was always your idea! And by the end of it, we’ll eventually be best buds and Ogden will once again name me Best Person in Town, or something like that. “Best Person in Ogden”...

OG-DEN. YOU-TA... YOU-TAHH?

Nancy’s brick plant was in the rearview mirror as I steered out her parking lot. The final prospect for the day, finished, and it was only a quarter to ten. Which meant bagel time — 

Bagel Time! PAN-CHECK-O. 

When you enter the bakery, a cattle-bell dingalings on the ceiling; its jangle dropping a touchdown in the back, prompting a stubby man to emerge from the clouds of flour. “PANCHEKO!” I blurted; I saw what he was wearing: one of my fresh, clean uniforms personally designed by moi. 

“Hey hey!” he responds. “The usual?”

The usual I tell him: cinnamon crème eclairs. A staple of Friday fun days from Pancheko. PANCH-ECHO? PAN-CHE-KO?

“You Indian? Like, Indian-Indian, but not, you know, like, India... you know?”

“Uhh — I guess?” he said. He shuffles some cents behind the register to ease out of the awkwardness... “Tell Manuel and Alejandro I appreciate them coming in a little earlier than usual.”

Manuel and Alejandro! My truck guys! Delivering on-time and on request, and probably the top dogs in their field. And best of all, their names fitting neatly into my Excel sheet always gives me tingles down my spine. The names of my hires are a heavy consideration — I pick my people based on if their parents wrote a two to four syllable word on their birth certificate. If you have a vowel sound near the end, your resume shoots to the top.

MAN-YOU-ELLE, with Pomade slicked into his hair, is the four-in-the-morning champion that warms the truck in our facilities garage; he unlocks the uniform house and once AL-LEH-HAN-DRO, my quarter-after-four(-because-he’s-always-late) champion comes by, they will then load the uniforms onto the truck and do their route:

Barbers; plumbers; florists; haberdasheries; a tea shop; a lamp shop; a vacuum shop (because these still exist); a pastry shop above the dry cleaners; the lady next to the corner store; a medieval cosplay bazaar (with too many suspicious funds); a sweatshop with a big American flag. It goes on.

And every time my truck guys shine their CINTAS truck on a store window, the game of Face Roulette begins: a smile — a grin — a lip lick — a nose scratch — a twirling of the hair — a tug of the earlobe — an eyebrow raise — and for some, and admittedly, it’s only “some” — an eyeroll. 

“I’m sorry,” I tell them, “It’s on the contract: you have five more months.”

I know what they’re going to say, and so I respond as I always do.

“Well, if you’d like to cancel, there’s a Cancellation Fee; it would be fifty-percent of the remaining months’ cost.”

Cue the silence, cue the sighing. Then it’s a mish-mash of, “fine”, “alright, “hmm-well”. Some are original. An Outback boy chewing on Copenhagen once told me, “Well aren’t you just slicker than a peter.”

We hangup. And as I sit at my desk for a few seconds, thoughts of what must be happening develop: they’re throwing their phone across the room, pouring over a Profits and Losses sheet, shouting HBO expletives and beating the shirts with baseball bats; suddenly, it dawns on them. “Screw these embroidered costumes.” Devilish ways to get them dirty soon encapsulate their imagination.

Paintball on the weekends. Maybe.

Scott listens to these ramblings often, and by often, I mean every Tuesday. Before lunch, preferably, to get it out of my system. I rant to him like a punching bag, go to Subway for lunch, feel bad, think “I should go to confession,” then do it all over again next Tuesday. Poor Scott.

But it was Tuesday, and I was never one to break habits . He fixes his pastiche mullet and fiddles his fountain pen with his lanky fingers. “Maybe they treat it like a movie ticket?” he responded, “Like, they bought the tickets, go into the movie, and about twenty minutes in, they realize, ‘What? Tom Cruise again?’, and they want to leave, but they’re already knee deep into the whole thing. They bought the tickets, the popcorn, the drinks; paid for parking! It’s a date night! So they rationalize, right? ‘Wellll — we’re already here.’ So they stay. And when the credits roll, they’re always disappointed. So like the movie credits, our trucks leave with a little disappointment behind. They’ll continue to wear the uniforms and/or ask for less deliveries, but every time they see us rolling around the corner, they’ll think ‘Ohhh boy... CINTAS’.”

I squinted at him for a few moments — “Hmm. Smart thought, Scott.”

“I try to be, sir.”

But while he lectured me his Theory For a Disappointed Life, I was distracted by two things. One — his name. Who names a baby Scott? SCOTT. SC-OTT? It violates section one of my hiring process (and yes, I checked the Utah Workforce Commission website — names are unenforceable. Good.) And second, his desk: his wasteland of tiny treasures and pseudo-tchotchkes. 

Tiny floss. Little pens. A postcard the size of a business card. A coupon for a grilled cheese. One of those gift shop jars with a penny inside it. 

He told me he wanted a Siamese Fighting fish — “My cousin had one in his home office. I thought it was neat,” he explained. I don’t tend to grant approvals for office installments, but for SCOTT, it’s okay — for now. Once people start noticing that one guy got this and she got that, then all order is broken and entropy occurs and who knows, if someone wears cargo shorts to an office in Ogden, does it necessarily start a conflict in Baghdad?

“Okay,” I said to him, “You can have the fish. But the bowl can’t be too big.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“And not too colorful.”
“Okay.”
“And only one fish.”
“They like to be alone.”
“Good to know.”
“What about your office, sir?”
“Meaning?”
He tried to reword and back-step his question — it was too late, honestly, but I told him I didn’t care (though I did enjoy the split-second power trip). “My desk and office are fine,” I said. My two ficuses and the IKEA dentist lamp provide me plenty of feng-shui for my personality; my office, symmetrical, has a mahogany desk facing a glass wall that looks out to the half-dozen employees on the floor; each one breathing this office with a nice sounding name and a coordinated clothing scheme. 

Many years ago, when the Big Cheeses in Sacramento discussed with me that it’s tradition for each CINTAS regional office to have their own uniform code, I remembered the phone melting warmly into my ear until they said, “We can find you a designer!” — “Why should we hire someone when I can do it?” I shot back. There was a brief pause on that call. They asked if I had any fashion or design experience. I answered yes, and they asked no further questions.

It’s why Mary, Michelle, Gary, Katrina, Benny, and SCOTT wear white on black. White tops, black bottoms. North Face jackets are permitted.

They all call me “quirky” at work, least that’s what they label me in their Slack chat. But I prefer the term “different”. 

“Clothes make the man. And woman. In the office (and I assume the world too), the individuality of that man or woman is the most prized possession, but that irks me.  Why be different for the sake of differentness? If the work diaspora went in separate directions, then what use are the grander goals? You buy turnips, I sell turnips, wow! Look at all these turnips! And what better way for us to converge our turnip interests than with our clothes? Shirts! Shoes! When we all wear together, we all work together. Imagine if the Christians, the Muslims, the Buddhists, you name it — what if we all had an agreed upon garb? Wars would cease! Racism would vanish! Call me old fashioned, but hell, clothes can change the world.”

Scott has heard this speech a billion times, yet I always feel compelled to make that number one-billion-and-one.

“Don’t worry sir, I understand,” he replied. “If The Manifesto is said aloud, then the possibility of utopia stays alive, and so every Tuesday, it inches a little closer to becoming reality. I think that’s how the McRib works.”

That’s what he calls it: The Manifesto. His term, not mine... And he’s joking, I’m aware. But joking about your leader’s philosophy got your hands cutoff in Ancient Egypt, so there's that.

“Alright. I’m off to lunch,” I said, but the Friday on Scott’s wall calendar piqued my interest. It’s square border was highlighted yellow. “What’s happening Friday?” I asked.

“Bring Your Daughter to Work Day,” he said. 

I thought that only occurred in TV shows, or that it was mentioned at children’s birthday parties. Bring Your Daughter to Work Day? Bring Your Child to Your Place of Work Day? Get Your Child Out of Bed, Get Them Ready, and Drag Them to Your Office With the Dentist Lamp (and I’m Not a Dentist)... Day?

Who made such a stupid holiday? The Man? The Big Cheese? The Big Kahuna? Or was it the Little Guy? The Pipsqueak? The Crumb Munchers?

“Isn’t it kind of funny that we all have daughters here?” Scott inquired.

= = =

Those words lingered on the drive home. It is kind of funny. Kind of. It’s only funny to the point if everyone brings their daughter, and although I have hesitations bubbling out my nose in the form of hot breathe, it only makes sense for me to bring Ella.

EL-LA. EL-LA. ELLL-LAAA.

I tried to give my first daughter an organized name, as if it’s the next Silicon Valley robot lady. Ella. “el-LA”; it’s a soft sound decorated with a Soprano candor (according to MaryEllen62 on babynamesforkids.net).

Lisa had the chance to get the next name since I won the coin flip on the first kid (I mean, we agreed on the name; I had final say per the coin flip rules, that’s all). She named him “Bryce”. BRYCE.

BRYCE.
BRYCE...

I love his chubby cheeks and bowl cut hair. His fascination with Hot Wheels always gets me — however, on days when I take him to the doctors — there’s a small pit of disappointment that lives under my spleen when I write his name next to ‘Print Patient Name Here’: BRYCE.

The subject arises about once a year between Lisa and me, and whenever we talk about it, she does a peculiar set of gestures: her eyes roll back — breathes in — raspberry on the breath out — eyes closed. “We agreed on it together,” she would throw at me.

“I know, I know,” I’d reply, “But you didn’t like ‘Ray’, ‘Roy’, ‘Raphael’, ‘Michael’, ‘Ari’-”

“No — I liked ‘Bryce’. So I picked ‘Bryce’.”
“But why? It doesn’t sound-”
“I don’t know why. I just do.”

The conversation usually ends there. Until next year. Some years (okay, most of them), I would respond with my philosophy on order and function and names and uniformity — and she gets the idea behind my mechanical ethos and my straight-shooter behavior (it’s why we’re married, I guess), yet, she cannot explain why Bryce is a “good name”. I then, in return, explain why her name is a “great name”.

Lisa. LEE-SAH. When we were introduced, I felt her name dance in the air like an orchestra’s final note; its syllables perfectly capturing her tone: she’s sweet.

When I first told her I liked her name, she said, “Hey, I like yours too.” And now we’re married. “Names matter,” I tell her.

I get home, and as I fumble for the keys (the porch light needs fixing), the howl of suburbia bleeds into the evening.

Usually I go in, hug the kids, and help Lisa in the kitchen. When I entered, all I saw was BRYCE, and wondered where Ella was. I caught up with Lisa making a soup, so I started smashing garlic. 

“She’s upstairs,” Lisa revealed with a smirk.
“Doing... what?” I ask.
“Oh, that whole TikTok thing. That whole craze with the kids.”

She then came downstairs, seeing only a glimpse of what she was wearing: an old Nirvana shirt. Out of code, of course.

The family uniform was minimal: leather sneakers with white shirts, with a coat thrown over if need be; it’s a look. I believe I got it from a “young men’s” magazine in the waiting room before a prostate exam. Lisa liked the idea of a family uniform style (phew!) and our closets are now stocked with white tops and sets of leather sneakers (ranging from tan to brown to dark brown). It’s a tidy style, and me, Lisa, BRYCE, and Ella all look Scandinavian when we strut into town for ice cream or the park.

However, Nirvana is not in the guidebook.

I finished cutting the garlic and told Lisa about the upcoming holiday. “That sounds like fun!”
“Fun?”
“Fun!”

The word “fun” can only be stretched so far until the perception of said ‘fun’ requires explaining. Lisa was all ears, but me lecturing the complex dynamics of childcare in a workplace made her only chop onions faster.

“I don’t get it?” she pressed. “You don’t want to bring Ella to work? Wha-? — You can be sometimes a tight-wad, you know that?”
“It’s not that I don’t want her-”
“I don’t think it’s about taking care of her at work. Or looking after her while you email and go to places.”

When I have hesitations for things (ie. river rafting, juice cleanses, Jeff Dunham), it’s usually due to a rusty gear not turning in my head and that won’t spin no matter how much I oil my ego. Lisa is my WD-40, and so after some questions that you’d might hear out of a self-help Buddha book, I divulged to her my actual thoughts.

My disinclined reasoning can be traced to the recent transition that Ella has made; in elementary and middle school, she always exhibited the family garb: leather sneakers with a white shirt. She loved track and math and saying “Thank you!” to the bus driver. She was “daddy’s little girl”, as it’s referred to on Facebook by her Aunt Yani. Those days were great — until they were on the precipice of junior high and since Day 1 of 8th Grade, Ella has changed from being that to this new, interesting techno-kid. I wanted (sorry, we wanted) to shoot for “Middle America meets Sweden” — she’s nowhere in either of those circles, and is currently inhabiting some realm of “Portland-based Kaiser meets tween-zine hashtag”. 

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” Lisa spitted. “She’s the outsider of the family; she’s making her own thing. I think that’s okay.”

“What’s okay?” a small voice chimed behind. We spun around and saw Ella in all her fashion: stitches on her sneakers, laces on the fritz, geometry joggers, and a plastic necklace with “D.A.R.E”. And that Nirvana shirt. It was probably found in a Goodwill bin, judging by the shredded strings hanging out on her arms.

Lisa remarked, “You look cool, sweetheart!” Back and forth chatter on how cool this all is soon followed. Lisa told Ella about the Friday coming up — I glared at her. Telling Ella without asking me if it was okay to tell... was not cool.
All I could think of at that moment was that family members saying things without your permission got your hands cutoff in Ancient Egypt.

“You can hang out with Dad!” she told her.
Ella let out a long, “Cooooool,” like she was seeing me as a zoo animal, and upon seeing her hazel eyes light up, I then internally conceded that this was the inevitable.

= = =

“I mean, what if I get made fun of? There goes my respect in the office. She’s not going to do what I told her because, well, that’s her thing. But it’s not a good thing. Do you know what I mean?”
“Hmm, well-”
“Imagine that! Imagine that! I think it’s because other kids are telling my kid on how to be a good kid. Who doesn’t know the repercussions of being a bad kid? I do! I’m older! I’m an adult! I know what it’s like to be a kid because being a kid was on my resume for 18 years! And I’ll tell you that a kid can learn a thing or two on how to be a kid from someone that used to be a kid. Right?”
“Right... so.... what is my total?” Nancy said. Manuel unloads the fresh uniforms into the factory locker room, while Alejandro nabs the dirty uniforms, tossing them into the truck without looking. This has been the routine for the last few days: meeting with clients, somehow rerouting the conversation to my quandary of the Daddy-Daughter Friday, and then the client asking innocuous questions to get off the topic. Ruminations raced my mind and words got babbled without filter: “What if they usurp my power? What if they stop taking me seriously? It might show that I don’t have my shit together!” 

Fantastical scenarios that involve myself being the laughing stock of millions of people soon weighed on my conscience — (okay, it’s not millions, but six employees felt like a ton of... bricks).

I left Nancy’s factory and headed back to the office.

Everyone was saying, “Hello sir” and “Good morning sir”, but nobody asked, “How are you doing sir?” Which would have been a socially acceptable opportunity to spout logical truths on how my kid was acting “out-of-hand” lately. But nobody asked. Not a single person was interested in asking me how my family was. All I’m seeking is reinforcement for my beliefs — is that too hard to ask for?

Mary, our front desk girl, was calmly whittling a cactus out of Willow bark; I slammed my satchel on the reception desk and her cactus broke like a toothpick. “Mr. Taffy!” she replied. “How may I help you, sir?”

“I need to ask a little favor.”
“I’m getting everyone’s smoothie order again, aren’t I?”
“I am—wait, what? No?... It’s Thursday, Mary. We get smoothies on Monday. They’re called Smoothie Mondays.”
“Oh, good to know.”
We had a brief pause while she blew her nose.
“You were saying sir?”
“Yes... how is your daughter coming tomorrow?”
“By car?”
“No. Like, how are they coming dressed?”
“Normally.”
“Which means?”
“I don’t know. How do you dress outside of work?”

= = =

I was writing a memo that said, “Happy Friday everyone, good to see you all here. Please tell your daughter to not touch the coffee machine. Thank.” (I like to leave the ‘s’ off intentionally to seem like I’m extremely busy, which I am.)

I hit Send. I look past my computer. There she was. Standing in the front door entry like it’s a WWE match, Ella enters the office in all her jazz: zig-zag socks, denim suspenders, hipster glasses, a ponytail in a sea urchin scrunchie — it all mixed like tomato sauce and lard.

“Daddy!” she exclaimed. I said hello. “You look... different.”

“IT’S THE FASHION, DAD. FASH-SHUN!”

She played with the other girls and talked to them; they spoke her language of TikTok telekinesis and hypno-fashion along with some interjections about boys (three or four of them went to the same school, apparently). Ella stood out like a sore thumb, her bedazzled bracelets jangling as the group of girls talked for hours and hours about dance routines and dance memes and dangerous snakes. “Think of the Anaconda!” she said a bit too loud, “Imagine that! The thing can eat a hundred rats!” The girls spoke to SCOTT about his new blue Betta fish — “Do you think this fish can beat a piranha?” Ella asked. 

The gaggle of girls were dressed conservatively: a shirt, some pants, and shoes; “cool” and “woah” were the simple phrases they used to describe Ella. I had a hard time drafting emails; there was a constant need to look over and make sure the room didn’t explode into a Rupaul re-run. Yet, it didn’t. It was girls being girls.

In the late afternoon, I did some runs to clients. Obviously, I took her along, and while we were leaving for the day (I told SCOTT that I wasn’t coming back to the office), all the girls traded phone numbers. Everyone complimented Ella. “What a look!” Mary told her. And Ella said, “Thank you!” to everyone like she was the Queen of England.

Clients noted her dress and doodle-drawn stud earrings. “What are you wearing?” one old boy chuckled over a pipe. “Versace, Gucci, and Spencer’s,” she joked.

It was a quiet drive around town, minus the occasional fun fact about spiders and bats from the passenger seat. 

We got home.

I fumbled with my keys and stepped inside and saw Bryce; I hugged him and I went to the kitchen like usual, this time with Ella following behind, and as soon as she saw Mom, a plethora of stories spilled out: “JOANNA SAID TO ME THAT IF THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE SUN WAS A TUTU, THEN JUPITER CAN FINALLY DANCE LIKE A BALLERINA,” or at least that’s how it all sounded — I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention. I was concentrating on cutting cilantro.

It was the weekend; Saturday to be specific. I’ve never thought of going to an aquarium before, so I went with the kids and Lisa. Ella was finally able to witness the piranhas eating a live chicken (or something alive, I don’t know, I was watching the piranhas more than what was getting eaten). Everyone clapped and moved onto the next exhibit. Hammerhead sharks. Jellyfish. Cichlids. Lisa and Ella walked over to see an above-ground exhibit of flamingos. Bryce wanted to see the turtles. 

We found the snapping turtles, like those you see in the bayou of Nantucket (wherever the bayou was, or Nantucket for that matter; I don’t know, I was focusing on the turtles). Bryce, without him being in my periphery, put his fingers into the water to pet the turtles — I snatched his hands out — “Woah woah woah, watch your fingers,” I shrieked.

“You should!” — I looked up; a lady with a floppy brim hat and a tan uniform draped her shadow over us. I stood up to meet her eyes.

“Keep your hands in there too long and they’ll cut your hands off!” she said.
“Ah,” I replied — I patted Bryce on the chest and said, “Just like the Ancient Egyptians!”
“Just like the Egyptians?”
“The Ancient Egyptians.”
She stared at me as if I said the Swedes ate spaghetti with tennis rackets, or something like that.
“Ancient Egyptians didn’t cut-off hands?” she let out.
…

“What do you mean?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“They did that though.”
“Not that I’m aware of?”

We had a few more sentences until she politely told me to have a nice day. Some moments passed and Bryce peered up at me. “Dad. How did the Egyptians make swords when all they had was sand?”

= = =

I was yelling at the plumber to get the stupid sink fixed; “I can’t,” he kept saying. 

“Then do it right you filthy animal,” I repulsed. His uniform was disgusting: red shoes with a blue tie? Mud tracked into the home?

“What’s your name?” I said.
He twisted his neck like a vulture and shouted, “PANCAKE.”

A cold sweat emerged as I woke up, and I had to grab a hold of my chest and body to make sure I was there. Closing my eyes back to sleep, the dream started to fade, until soon I lost track of the alarm clock — I sneaked a peek. It’s been seven minutes. I climbed out of bed, rocking the mattress slightly; Lisa became alarmed and dragged me back in — “What are you-”
“Just downstairs,” I said to her. I pecked her forehead (she likes that) and she began snoring again.

It was hard not to be loud when each stair step made a creak as I descended — “Dad?”

I jumped — slipped, and blew out my tailbone on the last stair. I turned to see who it was at the top of the staircase. “Bryce,” I whispered, “Go back to bed.”

“I’m sorry. I heard noises and got scared.”

Bryce came down and helped me up, his little arms only doing so much. He wanted hot chocolate — “At this hour?” I objected.

After a few minutes of prep, I handed Bryce his cocoa. Sitting on the couch, he sipped his chocolate in silence while examining a painting on a wall; and like he did with the painting, I did with him. Bryce.

Bryce.
Bryce.
Bryce...

I unplugged my phone from the kitchen outlet charger (I don’t like phones in the bedroom). I opened my email and leaned on the kitchen counter, thinking of how to word it. Standing there for mere seconds made me yawn with exhaustion and all I wanted to do was climb back into bed, but as my finger hovered over the subject line, I don’t know why, but it made sense to title it as such:

“Note for Today, Scott”

Scott.
Scott.
Scott...

Hi Scott,

You can breathe a sigh of relief on your drive to work today knowing that you will not hear my Manifesto today before lunch. I’m sure it’s been said enough times.

I’m sorry Scott.

Sincerely,

John