I Felt a Sample Sale in my Brain by Jacqueline Weyrauch

I felt a sample sale in my brain,

And shoppers, to and fro,

Kept searching, searching, till it seemed

Their bags were breaking through.

And when they all were checking out,

A cashier like a bell

Kept dinging, dinging, till I thought

“Do they take checks in hell”?

And then I heard them lift a shoe box,

 And tempt across my soul

With those same kitten-heels in plum,

My wallet takes a toll.

As all the heavens were a bell

And being but an ear

And I and fashion some strange dance

Chic, ruffles, here.

And then something inside me snapped,

And all the clothes fell down and down –

And now my credit card is maxed,

I’m leaving having—bought—

My parody is based on Emily Dickinson’s poem “I Felt a Funeral in my Brain” which traces the speaker’s descent into madness (Melani). The poem is supposed to have a very terrifying feel for the reader and the speaker, and I tried to put that same voice into my poem about shopping at a fashion designer’s sample sale and going clothes-crazy (<-yes this happens to some girls, namely: me). In Dickinson’s poem the speaker is imagining that there is a funeral going on inside her head and she describes her feelings as she is experiencing this. I wanted to use the metaphor of a fashion designer’s sample sale to represent a sense that part of me is a shopaholic and is easily overwhelmed by the excitement of a sale. In Dickinson’s poem, she speaks of feeling the funeral instead of actually attending the funeral “I felt a funeral in my brain,” (Dickinson 1), so I tried to use that same style in my poem by describing how the sale made the speaker feel, even though I want to emulate that the speaker was an actual participant in the sale. I used the shoppers in the first stanza as a metaphor to express excitement; their searching indicates the frenzy that can sometimes excite a shopper into feeling pressure of someone else stealing a good find or an awesome deal. In Dickinson’s poem, she seems to stop making sense and begin to descend into craziness in stanzas three and four “And then I heard them lift a box/ And creak across my soul/With those same boots of lead,/Then space began to toll/As all the heavens were a bell/    And Being but an ear/And I and silence some strange race/Wrecked, solitary, here.” (Dickinson 9-16). One characteristic of the poem that I noticed is how Dickinson notes her solitary, so I tried to give my speaker a voice that suggests she is shopping alone as if it is her against the other shoppers. I wanted to imitate Dickinson’s descend into craziness so in my poem I wrote the voice of the shopper to begin to go crazy and stop being rational. And then I wanted to leave the end of the poem open ended like Emily Dickinson did in hers “And finished knowing--then—“(Dickinson 20); I wanted the reader to wonder what the speaker actually bought at the sample sale. 

Narrative of the Waitressing Shift of Mom by Jacqueline Weyrauch 

By day I am a stay at home mom of two. I do dishes, wipe noses, cook finger food, bake goodies, and do loads and loads of laundry. I’m appreciated. I’m thanked. I’m loved. But by night, I turn to my alter-ego as a waitress at a fancy Italian restaurant. I pull my hair back, put a smile on my face, and then once my uniform is on, I am no longer a respectable mother. I am no longer considered a human-being. I turn into an inadament object whose primary purpose in life is to serve others. It doesn’t matter that I have a college education, or am certified to be a teacher, or that not long ago I endured the traumatic and beautiful experience of bearing a child. All of that gets stripped away in the eyes of the guy at table two who ordered a steak and wanted it medium-rare. I smile, write down his order, give it to the cooks, and then deliver the steak once ready. Table two guy, who’s been smiling and joking with his friends, treating everyone around him respectfully, denies me that same privilege once he sinks his teeth into the steak that isn’t cooked to his liking. It is then that I become ‘dumb’ and an ‘idiot’.

I have been waitressing for five years or so. I have had many tables, all overseen by larger and crueler people. One table that I had last night was a regular. His name is Mitch, but I call him “Mitch the b----h”
-- a title he acquired while having the most absurd service demands ever seen. He is a miserable man, roughened by years of working on the ore docks for the shipping industry in Duluth. He seems to take great pleasure in forcing others to put exactly three ice cubes and two lemons in his water. Many evenings I have been startled at the grunts coming from table two. After some time of waiting, I would peer in halfheartedly to observe a most terrible witness. In the dining room, Mitch would be sitting at his usual booth, shouting at a poor waitress, shouting at her as she frantically hurried to collect the correct amount of ice cubes and lemons for his water. I remember the first time I was his waitress, and I shall never forget it.

I hoped one day I could quit my waitressing job there, leave that restaurant and move onto better things – to a job of some kind that offers a salary and paid benefits, maybe a branch manager position. Finally, on a bitterly cold winter’s night in Duluth, I was stocking sugar packets in the waitressing side station. While I was doing my duties, Mitch came into the restaurant for dinner. He requested for me to be his waitress. I did not go. After a while he did spot me in the side station and began to walk towards me with an empty glass I presume he wanted me to fill with water. I somehow raised the courage to run out of there, out of the side station, out of the restaurant. Mitch followed closely behind me. As I got to the parking lot, his wife was there waiting. I took the glass out of his hand and threw it as hard as I could at his head. Blood ran from the cut on his forehead where the glass had shattered. I stood there trembling. I was free. This encounter with Mitch was the turning point in my career as a waitress. My confrontation with Mitch provoked years of being treated as less than human in my waitressing uniform to go flying out of me and overwhelmed me with the inhibition to go and find another job. Days later I was hired at our local YMCA…and then I was quickly let go after they learned of my violent display of actions. Nonetheless, serve tables I will do no more.

I’ve attempted to make a parody that is reflective of the style and voice of Frederick Douglass in the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave”. I used a simile in that I felt like a slave as a waitress. I tried to make my parody have the same essence as a slave narrative according to Donna Campbell’s website, by attempting to “arouse the sympathy of readers in order to promote humanitarianism” and in particular “The Quest for Freedom”. I gave my parody the same feeling and tone as Douglass used in his narrative where he uses a somber voice that desires something more for his life. The theme of Douglass’s narrative is how the white people have power over the blacks and salve owners control their slaves. I wanted to create a simile in my waitressing position on how customers think they have higher power over their waitresses and actually believe they have the power to control them.  I tried the best I could to mimic Douglass’s narrative by beginning this piece with a few facts about myself, that I’m a mother and attended college; similar to the way Douglass opens his narrative with some information of what he knows about himself such as his birth and parents “I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday.” (Douglass). Just like Douglass is very descriptive of the conditions of life in slavery, I wanted to describe the conditions of that of being a waitress. I’ve included a battle at the end of my parody because in the end of his narrative, Douglass has a fight with Covey in which he conquers his freedom and walks away stronger than he was before. I wanted my parody to imitate Douglass’s narrative by having an introduction to the subject (myself as a waitress), arguments against being rude to your waitress (waitresses are real people with families and lives), and an ending in which the speaker takes hold of their own freedom.