Memory Snapshot: An Inconvenient Time For Sausage and Sex

Memory Snapshot: Inconvenient time for sausage and sex

The energy on January 18, 2025 felt strange. No one in the department knew it, but it was the anniversary of my company’s start date. I celebrate it every year because I’ll always be proud that I went a different path than traditional. I was scheduled for one demo in meat department from 11-3 during the store’s tasting event. As I rolled my stand over to the product area, Elias stood there leveling lunch meat and cheese. I really didn’t want to say hi but because friendliness is basically my default setting, I did without thought. Plus, he was already looking at me as if he was waiting for me to break the ice.

“Hey, how are you?” my forced hello felt like pin pricks to my mouth, tongue, and esophagus all at the same time.

“Good,” he replies looking at his phone.

A video starts playing from Snapchat.

“Jace’s daily video incoming,” he looks at me with an expression of slight irritation.

“Oh, from Pookie? How cute,” I deadpan.

I start selling the product shortly after this. It’s an organic sausage made with chicken mixed with different flavors. So far my favorite was the chipotle. Yes, they pay me to sample them all so I can give a real life testimony of the flavor profile.

Midway through the demo, I go check backstock of what we have left, and realize we are practically out of every flavor except the one with cheese and spinach. The demo was for the chipotle flavor so I was truly pointing customers to that flavor. Next thing I know, I’m talking with Cole, and Elias appears with a float to stock lunchmeat and cheese.

I’m midway through my sales pitch when Elias interjects, “She’s got 2 more left of that flavor unfortunately.”

It was like a construction zone—Elias rolling through to level everything flat.

That irritated me.

The customer caught on to this slight change in the dynamic, and she played into it.

“I see he knows his stuff over there.”

Reminding him I don’t need him to bother me when I’m demoing as I am a professional in it, I loudly go, “Yeah, he thinks he does but he could be wrong.” I instantly see him hold those words like poison tip darts to his chest and instead of letting them go playfully or being funny for the customer, he changed the subject after the customer walked away, he started trying to jump into the inappropriate back-and-forth Cole and I had going with interjections of “deez nuts” throughout. Cole and him were getting along which made me smile. They seemed to have this unspoken “big dog” rivalry that I couldn’t place normally but today they were frolicking around each other like two dogs who just met at a dog park.

As Cole walked away, he let out a “Woo!” that everyone could hear then Elias looked at me dead in the eyes going “Anyway,” before walking away to the back.

At this point, I wasn’t fully aware how bad he was trying to sabotage my shifts daily but I was aware that I was still being talked about in unkind ways, and that was his fault because he didn’t dead those rumors or defend me whether he or Jace spread them. Yet, it continuously felt like he liked playing devil’s advocate to whatever I was doing during a shift just to slightly mess with me.

Suddenly, it’s one o clock or one thirty and Vic walks up to me as the truck just got here and I was going to be asked to watch seafood. Yet, the truck wasn’t here yet.

Vic looks at me with no humanity all business and says, “Can I have you move down here and watch seafood. The truck’s about to get here and we all have to move pallets?”

Sure, I said audibly but in my head, I thought it had to be Elias who asked Vic to do that because I hit a nerve with my comment in front of Codie and that customer.

Once I’m moved, I see Elias and I try to remind him of a time back in October when I was demoing, and I went in to refill my samples, and Elias was laughing, and when I asked him why, he said Wayne and Vic can’t seem to figure out how you get people to talk to you. Realizing what was so funny, I just deflected with, “They are just jealous cause I get to be out there talking to people.”

“I wish I could do the truck with you guys. It looks more fun than this.”

“Not really no.”

“It made no sense that Vic made me move so soon. The sausage I’m selling is down there.”

“Well, he needs you to watch seafood while we work truck.”

“You all are just jealous that I get to be out here talking to people and you have to pull truck.”

That got him to snap. “No one is jealous. You have to do this while we do that.” His voice sliced so fine it could’ve been a premium grade cut.

I stopped laughing and basically whispered, “Ok,” wondering why he didn’t realize I was just doing our bit, and recalling a callback to a lighter moment when it didn’t seem like everything I said and did hit a nerve or two.

I mean this is how it was in the meat department. You were an estranged family and having brothers is something I was very unfamiliar with but I know that brothers usually like when you poke fun at them, in small doses. Nothing I ever said or did in that specific Evergreen store should have been taken seriously except my HR report and any doctor’s note I handed in for my chronic pain, as well as any poem allowed to be shared in the breakroom.

I finished my demo and cleaned up quietly, then went shopping for two things: a couple things of buffalo sauce, and a cookie cake. My business is cookie themed so it makes sense.

Elias is standing near the front table and big meat department service window. He’s slowly gulping samples from what I left behind for them to snack on. Always feed your meat men. That’s what my mom taught me. If you feed a man, he will always have a soft spot for you.

As soon as he sees me with my cake and my stuff, he looks confused.

He mouths, “What are you doing?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. All shift he had about had it with my smart mouth. Now he wants to know what I’m doing.

I rush to the meat locker door, “I’m all done, so I’m heading home.”

He notices my cake, “Oh, who’s birthday is it?”

I get overexcited that somebody finally asked. A neurodivergent person will never share a detail with anyone unless prompted to do so. Our brains operate under the notion of emotional object permanence so we are actually baffled that people want to inquire about us and the things we do. I mean, normal human relationship should be reciprocal but because we feel things so much deeper than the average person, we rarely experience the same level of intensity from the people we know and love.

“It’s my company’s 9th birthday so I’m celebrating that.”

Vic starts singing happy birthday which makes me chuckle.

Then, Elias goes, “but what’s with the buffalo sauce?”

Me knowing it will irritate him to poke at because I remember him telling me he can’t stand buffalo sauce, “To pour over the cake of course.”

He rolls his eyes.

Every team member was there. It’s truck time on a Saturday.

So all the guys started talking to me about my business.

Dale goes, “You always want more hours…you don’t want to stay and help us?”

I go, “No I’m going home to celebrate.”

He goes, “What business?”

Elias interjects, “She’s a publisher, bro.”

He seems super duper irritated and wants this conversation to end.

Wayne with his typical inappropriate humor for the workplace suddenly interrupts, “You guys know that Chelsea publishes porn, right?”

Ah, there it is. The bringing it up without bringing it up neurotypical social concept.

Wayne continues but I notice that he shoves all twelve pieces of sausage into his mouth, which is psychologically a way that someone who has a lot to say about the topic suppresses themselves from talking about it.

Then, he goes to stand in the back of the meat locker. He continues to look more and more irritated.

I deflect Wayne’s suggestion with a Men of the Meat Department calendar with, “Haha, yeah I’m definitely down to work on that with you guys. When do you want to schedule our shoot?”

Troy suddenly pipes up, “How about tomorrow?”

I laugh as tomorrow it was going to be below thirty degrees.

“Tomorrow is going to be even colder than today.”

Troy chuckles, “Which will be good for my manhood.”

I wanted out of this conversation so I just said goodbye and left the store.

Yet, these interactions would forever stick with me one because even if they were joking, the things they were implying were actually harmful to women and men who are ambiguous in their sexuality.

And also, I still to this day wonder what happened to the words Elias wanted to share but chose to suppress with a very high sodium amount of sampled sausage.

Was it my imagination or did he actually seem irritated that the guys were talking about me in that way?

Whatever he wanted to say that day—it disappeared somewhere between pride and twelve pieces of sausage.