A few days ago, my manager switched out the Shrek 3 soundtrack for the Beatles' Love album in our queue of 5 overhead play CDs. On the one hand, the Love album is almost a year old, and thus cycling it through the store's speakers isn't necessarily gonna encourage people to buy it. On the other hand, if you're coming into my Borders looking for a CD, you're already in the wrong store. And Love is awesome, whereas Fergie singing "Barracuda" gets old real, real quick.
Last night I was shelving in the religion section, in a pretty rotten mood. One of those moods where I'm just slightly annoyed at everyone and, since I had to spend the first two hours of my breakless 5 hour shift on registers, I had already had about enough of smiling customer service. If I recall correctly, at the time I was grumbling to myself about how quickly the Buddhism books had gone from their aesthetically immaculate alphabetization to a jumble of misplacements and inconsiderate stashings.
Then the Beatles started singing "All You Need is Love."
Behind me, over my right shoulder, a girl started singing the chorus. Not quietly, either. In full, joyful voice. And, a moment later, another voice joined in, this one a pleasing tenor. And there was another moment, pregnant with anticipation, in which I was sure that the whole store was going to start singing. Laughing, tears forming and spilling, we'd all join hands and be glad to be human. We'd realize that it's easy to love one another, all it took was the willingness to do so. And we'd sing, probably in perfect harmony, again and again: "All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love. Love. Love is all you need."
Instead, the moment passed. The two singers, who had evidently come in together, moved down the aisle and their voices faded, lost in the jumble of a busy Sunday night. And it left me to wonder: how many other voices would it have taken for me to join in the song? How many smiling, loving faces would have had to turn my way before I joined in the celebration as it paraded out the café door, spreading into the night and into the world?
Would I have needed a bag check from a service manager before I left?
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5 comments:
nice, shar.
miss you.
blarg?
funny how social momentum works in situations. also, u done written this a good entry.
blargblarg!
oh! this is pure brilliance. tears started forming in my own eyes, and i wasn't even there. i've always wanted to concoct a situation like that, gathering together my own friends and associates. i'd stand on the street corner singing a song to myself. gradually, varied little groups would converge on the corner, from different directions, and join in, until the entire street was singing together.
then i realized that that's what those infernal a cappella groups do anyways.
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