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Part 6-16: Autocannibalism
I don’t see her again for a few weeks. Part of me is secretly hoping to add her to my stagnant list of regulars, but only Gary proves consistent through the wispy thread of patronage.
Once, in a rare fit of bravado, I sit down with the old-timer and ask him why he keeps coming back. After some time, he says, “It’s quiet.” I am not inspired.
I start an Instagram, and I start standing outside the shop and beaming niceties at passerby. Both acts are extraordinarily uncomfortable. I am quick to quit the social media since the stand-outside-and-smile tactic actually doubles business, but it isn’t mentally healthy. For one, despite the mess of tangly brown hair that lives on my head, apparently I get more customers if my ratty hairnet is disengaged—which means once I lure some poor soul into the shop I have to refit it, which is awkward and weird and I hate it.
For two, when I’m inside the shop I can’t be outside the shop, and I end up paying more attention to the foot traffic I could have lured, versus the paying customer in front of me, which I’m sure damages my repeat business probability. Despite the promising tactic, I am still fatally short of my sales targets and am also socially exhausted.
I wish that I could hire someone like Deluxe to handle promotional stuff. Reality check though: I don’t know how much financial analysts are paid but I assume it is between ‘significantly’ and ‘astronomically’ more than a soup shop greeter.
She is free of any visible animals upon her third visit, arriving during a highly common slow period, whereby only Gary-the-Constant is present. She promptly drops a curtsy at me.
“Where’s Lobster?” I ask, prepared for something weird.
She delivers by yanking a bag of water out of her skirt pocket. There is nothing inside, as far as I can see. I know better though.
She hops up to the counter and motions me closer to her upheld pouch of liquid. There is some gunk at the bottom of it. Undeterred, I say, “Why hello, Lobster!”
She is wise to my ruse, apparently, and rolls her eyes. “They’re baby sea urchins! So it is ‘hello Lobsters,’ if you please.”
Struck by an insane thought, I ask, “Do they reproduce asexually?”
“Sometimes, but they typically have up to five gonopores.”
“Oh.”
“Love holes.”
“…Oh.”
Gary snorts, and I watch Deluxe with growing anxiety. Not knowing exactly what to say after this, I steer it back to relatively comfortable territory. “Are you here to discuss autocannibalism or purchase bread?”
It is a little rude, perhaps, but at least it is something. To my relief, she takes a seat (and puts away her sea urchins). I feel a tiny surge of satisfaction: two patrons, sitting inside, were a good advertisement to the folks outside.
“I think both,” she says, “and I’ll try some soup. Carrot medley?”
I turn to look at my menu, sure that ‘carrot medley’ was fiction. Indeed, I have not written that anywhere. But this is a game I am well prepared to play.
“I think I can help you out there,” I say. “What size?”
“Largest, please. How much do I owe?”
“Oh, it’s on the house,” I say as I locate some ingredients. “So long as you can help me with some ideas for the shop.”
“What sort of ideas? New names you said?”
“Oh, those are mostly puns.”
“Such as?”
I am chopping carrots, bereft of my notebook, so I recite a few from memory. “One was Bisquey Business.”
“Four out of ten.”
“Thanks. Another was Basic Bisque.”
No response to that one. I glance over my shoulder as I dice up some celery. She seems confused.
“You know,” I explain, “like ‘basic bitch.’ But bisque. It’s supposed to be sassy, c’mon.”
“Is your bisque basic though?”
“How about The Baroness of Bisque?”
“That’s not a pun.”
“No. But you know, I don’t think it’s the name that’s going to help grow business.” I set a pot to boil. “It’s the product.”
“That’s true enough. Which brings us back to the autocannibalism.”
“I was waiting for that, believe me,” I call out from the freezer, fishing out some prepared veggie stock. I return to the counter area (which is also my cramped kitchen), wiggling the plastic stock container at Deluxe. “Would you eat something named Carrot?” I ask.
“Not if she were a lobster.”
“So you’re a financial analyst who is also an animal rights advocate. I’ve met some of each, never one that’s both.”
She tilts her head at that, and something sad comes into her eyes. She peers out the window and says, “It’s not so much about rights, I don’t think. We made rights. Not them. Lobsters don’t care about rights.”
*The phrase ‘our planet, our rules,’ dances its way onto my tongue, but I have a feeling that is not going to win me any favours. A silence settles, and my soup gurgles as I stir. I wonder which nerve of hers has been touched. She is still looking out the window, like she is hoping someone who has long been lost to arrive. *
I am about to ask something awkward about her sea urchins when Gary blurts, “So what is it all about then?”
“Efficiency,” she says.
It is at this moment that a fellow with a sawed-off shotgun kicks in my door.
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