Try Me

Every morning, Paige would punch her bathroom mirror.

It started when she was young: her mother would drag her to the mirror and point there at the exposed ribs or there at the bony arms. She would tell Paige all the things wrong with her body, her appearance. As she aged, Paige loathed seeing all the enduring flaws in her mirror, so splintering it became a ritual for her. She liked to see her face distort as the glass shattered; she liked her power of change. 

There were three principles by which Paige lived her life. The first was this essential power to change. Paige never allowed herself to get into a situation where she didn’t have the power to change things. Paige was not an observer; she needed to leave her mark wherever she went. She altered the world at every moment. This was her power. Without it, she feared she would not exist.

An individual ceases to exist when they stop exerting influence on the world.

Paige’s second principle was this: hesitation is weakness. Inhibitions inhibit the ambitious. Paige never let worry or regret dictate how she acted. Maybe how she slept at night, but never during her waking hours of productivity. Productivity is the one binding responsibility of the human race. To deviate from it would be to betray the unspoken code of the modern world: latency is larceny; inefficiency is homicide. However, Paige rarely knew what her goals might actually be, so she often found herself acting upon primal instincts rather than informed rationales. Frustrations necessitated an immediate outlet, regardless of the repercussions. To stop and think would be a waste of precious time. Paige often said she would worry about consequences when she was dead. Even to her, death was the impending inevitable she had no power over.

Mortality is the only real limit to a human without inhibitions.

The final principle by which Paige lived her life was to “fake it” until she “made it.” Unfortunately, Paige had no idea what making it looked like, but she knew it was best to put on a big smile along the way. She had found in her twenty- seven years of life that wearing one’s heart on their sleeve was neither proactive nor productive in the slightest. It was better to smile so no one bogged down her life with questions, complaints, and concerns. Paige needed to stay at top efficiency if she was going to make it to… wherever it was that successful people went. She didn’t have time for touchy-feelies. She was pragmatic, the wind of change.

Nothing would deter Paige.

Except, Paige had trouble keeping jobs. She always put a piece of herself into the work, and yet at each workplace, she felt as if she was going nowhere. The jobs made Paige feel stuck. When she tried to progress and innovate the industry, the companies crucified her. Paige’s last job as a free sample vendor at the Wynn & Wine’s (a local Costco knockoff) had lasted only a few weeks. Paige had served expired and spoiled food to multiple passing customers. She cited a distaste for waste as her causation. Her manager, Jim, hadn’t cared.

Paige was fired on the previous Friday. It was now Sunday.

Paige drifted into the Wynn & Wine’s that Sunday morning like an unseen storm breaching over a mountain range. She brought with her an enormous backpack full of personal items, and was wearing her old employee uniform. She was supposed to return it to Wynn & Wine’s staffing offices, but she didn’t see the sense in that.

Paige found her way to her old workstation—the sample table behind the cookies and crackers aisle. It was a sheltered corner of the store. Customers would only come this way if they had walked down the cookies and crackers aisle and wanted to turn towards the dog food aisle against the southern wall. Even then, the station was tucked into an alcove on the aisle’s butt end; it was easy to miss unless the vendor jumped out at you. Paige often did just that on her shifts, exploding from the alcove into the aisle, thrusting her samples under customers’ noses.

Paige would have been fired much sooner if management had known she did this, but one must remember how large the Wynn & Wine’s is. There were over fifty employees on-site at any given time. It was unlikely for one staff member to recognize another unless they worked closely together on their shifts; it was impossible for one staff member to know everything that another was doing on those shifts. The right hand rarely knew what the left was doing.

The sample vendors worked with no one else, save their manager or supervisor.

For that reason, Paige made certain she had memorized Jim’s schedule for the coming week. She also knew from checking the schedule that no one had been hired to replace her at the cookies and crackers sample workstation. As long as no long-time employees ventured back there—which they wouldn’t—Paige was free to enact her most pragmatic of plans, her most powerful of plans.

Paige was feeling ambitious. And after being fired, she had no inhibitions. In addition to her three guiding principles and the ritual with the mirror, Paige had several odd habits and tendencies. For example, Paige liked to remove the used wads of gum from table bottoms. Sometimes, though, she would just move the gum to a different table’s underside. She wasn’t sure what this accomplished, but it changed something.

Paige opened her backpack and spilled its contents onto the workstation’s blue tablecloth. She hid several empty containers underneath the table; only
she would know that they were there, finally devoid of their ingredients. Paige organized the other items deftly and thoroughly, creating a pleasant tableau
to entice the customers. In one corner of the table, Paige placed an empty box that had once held a package of Wynn & Wine’s PB Cookie TreatzTM. Paige had dumped these store-bought cookies in the trash at home, keeping the box for this occasion. Front and center, a metal tray of homemade peanut butter cookies flashed and allured.

Another habit Paige had was collecting her cast-off hairs, nails, and pus. She liked to watch them pile up in jars and take up space. Every few months, she would have to buy bigger jars to contain them. This thrilled her.
The table was set, a cunning trap. If all went well—which it would—Paige would no longer feel confined to one place; Paige would no longer have to punch her mirror anymore.

The old man had practically moaned in pleasure as he gulped down his sample cookie. Paige herself felt a chill run down her spine as the man swallowed and sighed. He tipped his hat.

The middle-aged woman and her much-too-young boyfriend took two samples each. How crude. Paige dug her nails into her palms to keep from shouting in excitement. Thankfully, they had been trimmed recently. Her blood stayed hot, but in its proper place under her skin.

A young boy strayed from his parents. He nibbled furtively. Paige offered a smile. It would be their little secret.

And they all went about their little lives as normal.

But they were changed. Only Paige knew that, and it gave her immense power.

Five hours passed in which no staff found her.

Midday, a part-time inventory worker restocked the ten-pound kibble bags. “Paige?”

Paige smiled and waved.
“Weren’t you fired?”
Paige smiled, shook her head.
“Oh, okay. See ya around.”
Paige smiled as they walked away.
More customers. Paige dispensed forty-two samples to a total of thirty-four customers. Many had taken two; some had taken three.

Then there was an hour remaining before closing time. “Paige.”
Paige whirled around to face her old manager.
Jim’s arms were crossed. “You can’t be here.”

Paige made no effort to move. “I’ll call security.”

Martha and Estaban were on security tonight. They liked to play pick-up sticks in the back broom closet just before close. Paige laughed out loud at the thought of pick-up sticks in the broom closet.

“You think this is funny? I should have you arrested.”

Oh-ho. Look who wanted to be in control. Jim had to domineer every situation. In Paige’s mind, his official title had always been “Jim, General Micro– Manager.”

Jim fondled his staff radio.
Paige offered him a peanut butter cookie.
Jim hesitated, but then gripped the homemade cookie and took a bite. “Not stale this time. Doesn’t change the fact that you don’t work here.” He nodded in approval as Paige began packing up her things. “It’d be best if you didn’t shop at this store anymore.”

Paige finished clearing off the table and stood up. She was taller than Jim. Jim floundered for something else to say. “Um, Paige.” Paige waited, her head cocked.
“I know you have some issues at home. That’s why I’m not going to file any charges.” Paige smiled, her eyes void.
“But you should really get some help. If you want, I know an organization…”
Paige brushed past him and down the dog food aisle. Out of the corner of her eye, Paige saw Jim pull a long strand of hair from between his teeth.
Paige decided that she wanted to help Jim. Micro-managers needed someone to impose authority over; she understood that much. Paige just didn’t want that someone to be her. However, Paige would be generous. That was in her principle of “faking it.”

Paige ducked into a different aisle and scampered to the back of the building, unnoticed. She slipped down the rear staff hallway and wove her way to the managerial office.

Each shift manager and general manager had their own full-length locker. They were quite roomy.

Jim’s locker had a narrow mirror hanging on the inside of its door.

Jim should’ve micro-managed his diet instead of his employees. He was dangerously thin. He should have put a little more meat on his frail, white bones. On Monday, the scent of freshly cooked meat filled the Wynn and Wine’s.

From the hardware section with its power tools to the electrical grills in the camping supplies, a familiar but unique flavor fell upon the nostrils of Wynn and Wine’s patrons.

By afternoon, it was clear that Paige’s mini-hamburger samples were a smash-hit. They tumbled down gullets and came to rest peacefully in passing customers’ stomachs. Many even commented on how extraordinary and new the taste was. And no one knew.

No one knew how powerful Paige was. It never dawned on anyone that she had fundamentally changed them. Not a single thought graced the customers’ minds as they grazed on the miniature meat samples like clueless sheep.
Paige was the Goddess of Wynn & Wine’s. She resided in the souls of every customer who traveled past the corner of the cookies and crackers aisle. Paige had been struck down on a Friday, and she had risen again on that glorious third day. She ruled silently in the corners that the false-prophets never bothered to check. And no one knew.

No one knew what Paige had changed inside the samples and consequently inside of their contented stomachs. No one knew the epiphanous realization Paige had made on that previous Sunday evening when she had waited inside the back office’s full-length locker for her ex-micro-manager Jim to sit down at his desk so that she could come up behind him and bludgeon him to a grisly death with a Wynn & Wine’s company stapler. Only Paige knew:

Heart and brains make for better flavoring than hair and nails.