“You’ve drawn me a penis,” she repeats

IN THE current economic climate, when jobs are scarce and precarious — I told myself earlier this year, “You must be prepared to shoot yourself out of your comfort zone like an arrow.

And when you land in unfamiliar territory, you must rise to its challenges with courageous heart.”

Thus I stand yet again in my friend’s vintage shop, at the coal-face of Customer Service, and all day long, I’ve risen to its challenges with courageous heart; I have operated my Special Calculator for the Innumerate with discretion and aplomb, and tailored my service according to the different personalities and needs of customers.

Now, five minutes before closing, I am sitting behind the till, giving myself an excellent appraisal.

“You have nailed this Customer Service thing down,” I’m just thinking, when suddenly the bell tinkles, signifying the entrance of a customer.

Middle-aged, with an American accent, she exclaims, “Oooh! What a priddy shop,” potters about downstairs for a while, and then marches briskly up the stairs.

Fifteen minutes later, I get a terrible fright when someone booms, “Any idea how to get to Kenmare?” in my face; I’ve been so busy awarding myself points for Customer Service (10 out of 10), that I’ve forgotten all about the American upstairs until she re-materialises out of thin air, like Doctor Who’s Tardis, in front of me.

“I came down from Dublin yesterday,” she confides, “and if you don’t mahn me saying, Irelan’ all looks a bit... down on its luck… and kinda… bleak.”

“Well Ireland is a bit down on its luck,” I say, “but as far as bleak is concerned, from here on in it won’t be. Not if you take the coast road to Kenmare. The coast from here to Kenmare is beautiful.”

She looks relieved, “So far, ah have to admit, ah’ve been a bid disappoynid…”

“No longer,” I exclaim, picking up a biro and tearing a page out of the receipt book, “I’m going to tell you exactly where to go. I’ll draw you a map.”

“Oh how wunnerful,” she says.

“Right,” I say, pushing my biro along the page, “You wiggle along the road from here to Glengarriff. Once you get to Glengarriff, the landscape gets majestic.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” I say, drawing a couple of hills and foresting them with trees, “at Glengarriff, it starts to get more mountainous. From there, you drive out to the Beara peninsula, going along the bottom of it, like this,” I illustrate with my biro, “through Adrigole, until you get to Castletownbere.

“Now, at Castletownbere, you can cut across the peninsula to Eyries, on the topside of it,” I say, drawing a line up northwards. “But don’t do that,” I advise, retracing my line back down to Castletownbere, and whooshing my biro west. “Keep driving along the bottom of the peninsula, all the way to Allihies, which is here,” I say, drawing a dot.

“And then round,” I continue delineating the end of the peninsula with my biro, “on up to the topside of the peninsula to Eyries, and then all the way,” I say, drawing onwards now with a firm hand, “to Kenmare, which is here.”

There,” I say, turning the piece of paper around and pushing it towards her across the counter, “you’re all set.”

She says something. There is a pause, in which I think, “This woman cannot have said what I think she’s just said.”

Second time round, there’s no mistaking it. “You’ve drawn me a penis,” she repeats, turning the map around so that it’s facing me.

I look down. I have drawn, unmistakably, a hopeful-looking phallus, complete with two hirsute testes at its base, a line across the shaft to demarcate the head, and an eye (Allihies) on its rounded end.

Despite all efforts to persuade her out of retaining my map, she leaves the shop with it, “as a memento,” she says, backing out of the door and clutching my map to her chest, convulsed.

“A memento of my Customer Service,” I despair, and revise — most bitterly — my 10 out of 10.