In the Lobby of Forgotten Words
by John Weagly

The customer is always right.

These five words have been branded on my psyche.

Working at the Outsider Theater Company, I do everything within my power to make our patrons happy. It's never enough.

OTC is a mid-size theater in a big-size city. I run the Box Office, a job where you have to be smart enough to be able to do the work and dumb enough to be willing to do the work. I have a degree in playwriting. I've had a couple short plays produced at a few theater festivals here and there. I haven't written anything new in six years. I thought working at a theater would be a dream come true, a part-time job to help make ends meet until something better came along. It's not a dream and I've been there eight years.

"I'm a playwright."

"Have I seen anything you've written?"

"Probably not."

"Are you having anything done right now?"

"Not right now."

"I see. That means you spend three hours a day hunched over your typewriter."

"I'm not working on anything at the moment. I'm on sabbatical."

I was talking to Mrs. Krause. She'd been an OTC subscriber for as long as I could remember. She was there to see our production of "The Petrified Forest". It was the middle of one of the hottest Junes on record and I'd just dealt with three different patrons with three of my favorite questions.

"Can you guarantee that I won't sit behind a tall person?" We don't ask people their height when they buy tickets. Maybe we should.

"What time does the play start?" This is asked as they look at the sign that says: "Tonight's Production Starts At Eight O'Clock."

And "Do you work here?" Why would I be sitting inside the Box Office, at the window, if I didn't work there?

Maybe it was the heat, but they made me want to scream. I wanted to go into the theater, jump up on the stage and shout at the audience. "Don't any of you get it? Aren't any of you here for the play, for the art, for the creativity? Don't any of you care, or are you just here to complain and ask stupid questions?"

I knew it wouldn't make any difference. They wouldn't understand. Each of them had the starring role in the play that is their life. Their problems were the only things that mattered. And besides, the customer is always right.

Then Mrs. Krause came up and started in on me.

"You're not a playwright."

"I'm not?"

"No. A playwright writes plays."

Just when I was about to tell her that I did write some plays once and that, in my book, that still made me a playwright, a bald man wearing a sweaty, gray sweatshirt elbowed his way in front of her.

"I have a problem." He was wiping sweat from his face with a blue bandana.

Mrs. Krause winked at me and wandered off.

"Yes, sir?" I asked him.

"Why can't I find out anything when I try to call this theater?"

"What do you mean, sir?"

"I always get the machine. What is that nonsense? Doesn't anybody work here?"

The Outsider Theater Company's Box Office phone message starts like this:

"This is great! Really amazing! There are so many people

I wanted to thank the other night, but I didn't get the chance.

Let's see, there's…"

It goes on for about three minutes, listing names nobody's ever heard of. Then it has about ten seconds of information about The Petrified Forest.

The story is that OTC's Artistic Director, Betty Adler, won a Thespis for Best Director of the year. It's a local theater award that seven critics vote on, that everyone in the theater industry spends the entire year saying means nothing and that doesn't do a thing to boost ticket sales or attendance or even curiosity in your work. However, once you've won one, you let yourself think it's the biggest deal since Tennessee Williams came out of the closet.

"I'm sorry, sir. When we're on the line, calls roll over into voice mail. We check messages throughout the day and call people back as soon as we can."

"I don't leave messages."

"Then maybe I can answer your questions now. What would you like to know?"

"I don't have any questions."

"Then what can I do for you, sir?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is there something I can help you with? Did you want to buy some tickets?"

"I don't care for theater. I was calling for somebody else."

"Then what can I do for you, sir?"

"I want you people to know that you're a bunch of idiots and you're doing a lousy job."

Everyone has opinions. I'd rather not hear them, but sometimes I have to. Sometimes it's part of my job. Being insulted, however, is not part of my job. Trying to hurt someone's feelings, all because of a voice mail message, is going one step too far.

But the customer is always right.

I took a complaint form out of a filing cabinet and helped him fill it out. As soon as the man in the sweatshirt left, I put his complaint in my pocket and went back to work.

Later that night, in the privacy of my apartment, I took the paper out of my pocket. Nature of complaint. Name. Address. Home phone. Work phone. He'd left work phone blank. Didn't Sweatshirt Man have a job?

That blank line gave me an idea.

The next day I went to the theater and assembled a few things I'd need. Plywood. Rope. Paint. An old winter coat. A wig. I did some alterations and assembly and then went home to sit down at my computer. I hammered out the details of my plan. It was the first writing I'd done in a long while.

"How long have you been out of work?" I asked.

"Few months."

We were sitting in a bar. I was wearing a suit and the wig. He was wearing his sweaty, gray sweatshirt. Ninety-eight degrees out, and he's wearing that sweatshirt.

"Where did you get my number," he asked.

"The employment agency." I gambled.

He nodded his head and sipped his beer. "What are you looking for?"

"Before I answer that question, let me ask you something. How would you like to make three-hundred dollars for three hours of work?"

His eyes lit up like an ingénue seeing her leading man burst through the door. "Sounds pretty good."

"What we're looking for," I told him, "is a man just like you. Idiot Enterprises helps people make non-idiot decisions. We offer advice on all aspects of life: money, career, romance. People tell us what they're thinking of doing and we examine the facts and tell them whether or not it's a good idea. We want people to do the right thing. At Idiot Enterprises, we think there are already enough idiots in the world."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Hand out our flyers."

"That's it? You're going to pay me three hundred dollars to hand out flyers?"

"That's it. Hand out flyers and wear our promotional material."

He smiled and nodded his head.

My new employee paced up and down the street while I sat in the bar and supervised. Every person that walked past asked him the same question.

"Why are you an idiot?"

On top of his gray sweatshirt, he wore a heavy winter coat with the words "Go Ahead" printed on each sleeve. Over the coat hung a brightly painted sandwich board that read "Ask Me Why I'm An Idiot" on the front and back. Every time someone said, "Why are you an idiot?" he tried to hand them a flyer, but the passers-by just shook their heads and kept walking.

It was a nice sunny day without a cloud in the sky, but he didn't look like he was having a good time. The sun beat down on his bald head. The sweat ran down his face like a waterfall. The thick coat and gray sweatshirt must have made his body feel like it was on fire.

He came into the bar after a half an hour.

"Can I take a break and get a drink of water?" he asked.

"Why don't you keep it up a little bit longer," I told him. He didn't look like he appreciated that answer, but the reminder of three hundred dollars when he was finished helped to convince him.

He went back to work. His pace grew slower and slower. He didn't offer as many people flyers. I swore I could hear him moaning with each step he took. After only fifty-three minutes on the job, Sweatshirt Man passed out from heat exhaustion.

As soon as he hit the sidewalk, I left the bar and stood over him.

"You're lousy at your job," I told him. "You're too much of an idiot even for us. You're fired!"

"My money?"

"We said three hours. You don't do the job, you don't get the money."

I left him lying there in a pool of sweat.

I wrote my experience with Sweatshirt Man and Idiot Enterprises into a play called "The Customer Is Always Right". It was play about feeling and art and redemption and creativity. It won a Thespis Award for Best Original Script.

John has toured the US as a writer/performer with Authorized Personnel: A Comedy and Improv Team and has had over 30 plays produced by a variety of theaters across the country. He lives in Chicago with two cats and works on the Chicago River as a deckhand for the Wendella Sightseeing Boat Company.