When I was eight years old I was rightfully told I was well versed in the art of bullshit. I can, with little effort, sound intelligent on almost any subject.

With the exception of airplanes and science fiction movies.

As time has passed, I have realized the value of such a gift. I have honed my craft and polished my arrows of verbal destruction. This has not been in vain.

A customer walked into my office and seated himself in front of my desk. He didn’t knock. Didn’t ask if he could sit. He just planted himself front and center for maximum harassing purposes.

He was a middle aged librarian type. Tweed jacket, leather elbow patches, gold rimmed glasses, crisp in his words. Vaguely interesting fellow, however, highly pretentious. In short, a Grade-A bag of douche.

Sitting behind my desk on my counter is an iron cast statue. I bought it off the sale rack of Ikea. It is pretty, fits nicely with my decor and garners the occasional compliment and conversation.

However, with this customer (see: douche) it wasn’t going to simply start a conversation; it was going to provide deep and meaningful conversation for his entire duration of the visit in my office. It was going to provide him with the fodder he needed to show just how wise and worldly he was.

He started off with a barrage of questions regarding it:

Name of statue?
Name of artist?
Significance?
Era?
Did it have that balance of a circumference big enough to feel good in his ass and yet small enough not to bruise?

He started guessing a few of the answers, trying to draw me out and figure out just how uneducated I was. Like he was some kind of expert who went around educating people as to their inferior knowledge of five dollar statues from Swedish furnishing companies.

A little background: He informs me he’s an art professor at the local college. I tried to put on my caring face, but it was wearing thin.

At first, I cringed. Another two hours with some yuppie who found their significance in life by harassing customer service professionals about their office decorations. Then, it dawned on me, he wants answers?! HE’LL GET ANSWERS! Once the bullshit started to spew, it couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. See if you can spot the bullshit in what I told him. It’ll be like a “Where’s Waldo” or something:

“This statue, entitled “Life”, is a beautifully simple portrayal of the childlike desire to embrace the moments we have and dance. It was crafted by a African child named Muesaka Zwibi whose warrior king father was killed by warring rebels. Muesaka was brought to London where he is currently studying at the Royal College of Art. He hopes to be a generational influence for peace and a advocate for the simplistic beauty and joy that art can bring to the classroom. His collection will be debuted fall of 2007.”

He left. Quiet and commentless. If only airplanes and science fiction were that easy.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2007 at 3:07 and is filed under Sarah S. Thursdays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.