Dancing Out of the Closet by Matthew Shaffer

Author:Matthew Shaffer [Shaffer, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BearManor Media
Published: 2019-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

Faced With Fame

Life was anything but glamorous for me as a twenty-one-year-old closeted chorus boy working at the Pottery Barn in New York’s art-endowed and trendy Lincoln Center area on the Upper West Side. In between fluffing pillows and the egos of Pottery Barn’s rich (mostly female) clients, I spent my time working with the design team. I had exceeded the daily expected work performance of a Xennial employee and was bestowed the opportunity to carry out the aesthetic changes in the store, which were handed down through the corporate team of designers. In non-closeted-gay terms: I helped Dwain — the very confrontational and cliché gay design manager — arrange seasonal displays, false-front candles, rearrange well-manufactured slipcover sofas, and (because I was a Boy Scout and thus automatically understand how to operate a power tool) complete any project that involved a drill. All of this came with a hefty twenty-five cent an hour raise and the bonus of starting my workday at six o’clock in the morning. On the bright side, it meant working for three hours without customers!

I spent the majority of my six-month stint at Pottery Barn hating life. Dealing with affluent and utterly incompetent costumers who would return lamps they thought were broken when the light bulb simply needed to be changed. Bringing back cases of wine glasses that were obviously used for a special occasion, which the woman denied while making direct eye contact through the wine-stained and lipstick covered rim. Or my personal favorite: the angry East Side widow who returned an 8 x 10 wool rug which she “schlepped all the way from the East Side” because she didn’t like the color. I didn’t like the fact that it was covered in cat urine. When I mentioned this to her she insisted that it wasn’t like that when she rolled it up. I suppose the huge Crate & Barrel logo wasn’t there either, never-the-less Pottery Barn happily accepted the return and she walked out with the cash.

Every day was a new adventure in discovering just how shitty wealthy, superficial people in search of love, attention, or power via a retail home makeover can be. I realized quickly that my only chance of survival was to pretend that I was in a movie and everyone who entered the store was just a performer in my scene. It started out subtle. I’d arrive on “set”, punch in for my “scene” and get into character. I was Bitchy Gay Employee Number One. The store manager was my director, my colleagues were cast mates, the annoying customers were co-stars, and everybody else was just background. Pottery Barn became my own Central Perk (a Friends reference for anyone living under a rock). If I were unhappy with the “direction” or an exchange with a “co-star”, I would walk away from the action, rewrite my script, and start a new scene. I got so good in my “role” that I continued to live my life in New York as if

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.