City Lights Blogger

Every one of my jobs has been a retail position up until this point.  There’s this predetermined stigma about retail with the customer service aspect of the job: working directly with people kind of sucks. Spending four years in high school, every weekend, while working at the Tim Horton’s “drive-thru” window lead me to believe that. It was an absolute emergency that those people receive their coffee immediately.

If you work in retail, remember that even in our work environments, we are able to meet great people. Individuals are friendly, and individuals are rude. This makes work fun, because I constantly chat with customers who usually have something in common with me. All people can actually teach us lessons when we least expect it.

Forest City Fashionista is a great example of someone I met while working. She was looking through the men’s footwear section while I grabbed a pair of eggplant-purple high top sneakers with gold details for her. Through bits of info she shared, I knew she was visiting Toronto from London for her birthday, and the previous night she went to see a ballet. Her lifestyle is blogging about interesting street fashion, which she also agrees is a great way to meet people.

Curious, I asked her how long she had been living in London for. When she answered about 20 years, I mentioned that maybe she knew a place called City Lights Book Store. Marc Emery, a major marijuana activist operated this used bookstore for 17 years, and was her boss for two of them. Being the highlight of my shift, I enthusiastically explained how inspired I was after learning about the progress of the movement from Emery’s involvement to end cannabis prohibition. The friendly stranger bond is now forever connected between us. 

While I was cashing her out, she asks me about my necklace.  My talisman, or bling, is my most prized possession: a birthday gift I found myself in Kensington Market, from over 100 years old from North East Afghanistan made by the Turkmen tribe. Whoever wore this necklace in the beginning most likely smoked some great hash too. Impressed by the story, Forest City Fashionista asked if she could take photos of me for an article. As she showed me a smiling image of myself on the camera’s display, I told her about Puff Puff Pashmina, and her advice was to write what I want about how I feel.

Being a stoner, I am able to embrace the benefits of marijuana when it allows me to perceive a situation in a different way. Without acknowledging the value of meeting new people, even dreaded customers, Forest City Fashionista would never have inspired me to write this post.  

A few days ago, Forest City Fashionista actually wrote an article about me:

http://www.forestcityfashionista.com/2010/12/fracshion-of-regular-price.html