Daisy clutched her warm mug and giggled.
“Well, you don’t look like a Christian bookshop worker to me!”
Cammie agreed and threw her head back, filling the kitchen with one of her infectious laughs.
I tapped my fingers on the smooth varnish of their solid oak dining table and stared at Daisy with a frown.
“What do you mean?”
“She means,” said Cammie, “that you do not fit the stereotype image in our heads of what…well, you don’t dress like one of them, for a start.”
Before I could interject, she continued,
“Flat shoes, floaty skirts, flowery blouses…”
“With long sleeves and a bow at the neck.” said Daisy.
Cammie went on,
“Chains on your glasses, hair in a bun, fish brooch and five WWJD bracelets on your wrist.”
I leaned back on my chair and folded my arms.
“I’m really looking forward to this job. And after being sat in a call centre, wearing shabby clothes, I’m quite looking forward to dressing smart again. Besides, if that’s your real image of a ‘saved saleswoman’, shouldn’t it be broken?”
Daisy and Cammie continued to laugh and whenever they glanced at each other, their chuckles became heartier.
The first day of my new job – the 29th of December – was a memorable one. Telephone banking had proved to be disappointing, especially as there were no decent hours available. 2pm to midnight didn’t suit me at all. How lovely it was going to be, doing a 9-5 job again!
The staff however, felt like they too had been doing 10-hour shifts and were exhausted from the Christmas rush. On top of that, there was no respite due, because they had to prepare for end-of-month changes, new month promotions and January sales.
Casper, the assistant manager, had the task of showing me around the shop. Considering his natural introverted nature, he was quite chatty and seemed to enjoy telling me tales about the customers.
After our trip to the staff room, he stopped by the bibles on the first floor and proceeded to tell me a story about a lady who had recently demanded to know the intricacies of a certain bible version. He hadn’t been familiar with it and was immediately honest, explaining that he could not answer her queries. But she wasn’t satisfied with this response. She told him she believed that all Christians should be au-fait with this version and to admit that one wasn’t, was tantamount to confessing to being a complete heathen.
As Casper continued to recall the incident, he became more and more agitated and grabbed an NLT New Testament that had fallen on its side.
“The woman began to interrogate me and eventually put her hand on her hips and asked me if I was a Christian. When I said ‘yes’, she made a sucking noise with her teeth and claimed that a true believer would know the answers.”
I smiled encouragingly as the pocket bible banged loudly on the shelf.
“That was it! I wanted to kill her! There and then, I really could have killed that silly woman!”
There was no smile on Casper’s face.
“Ah, he meant it.” I thought.
Indeed, I could tell from his expression that this was not a joke.
I wanted to reply by saying, “Well, as you had such machinations for murder, maybe she was right to question your faith”, but thought better of it. I had to work with this man. There were three flights of stairs on the customer floor; one leg out, and he could send me hurtling down the stone steps to my demise.
“Better keep on the right side of him.”
In his defence, I was to learn later, that not only was Casper a gentle-spirited man who loved the Lord with all his heart, but that I was worse than him in the ‘grace-stakes’. As a matter of fact, there was many a time since that first conversation, that I was greatly tempted to inflict mortal harm on the odd customer or two.
This was life in a Christian bookshop.
