Lost in the Back

Every store has an area “in the back” we regard with reverence as we behold the cavernous, almost impossibly huge space with its labyrinth of shelves and pallets holding every conceivable item in our stores’ inventory. It’s daunting to even consider going back there to find a single item, which is why we so often lie to customers about it. However, not all of us are made of such cowardly stuff. This is the story of one such man….

It seemed like an ordinary shift for Jeremy Dibiase, a soft-spoken big-box retail worker from Tarpon Springs, Florida. It was a little busy and tensions were high given recent supply chain issues. A customer approached Jeremy about a cast iron pan she couldn’t find.

“He said it was out of stock,” recalls customer Debra Stanislawski, “but that’s not what the internet said and I told him that. He was nice enough to offer to check the back for me.”

“Yeah, she demanded he check the back,” adds Lance Frye, a coworker of Dibiase, “even after we told her we don’t keep stuff back there.”

Jeremy Dibiase did not return from the back room that day, nor did he show up for work the next day.

“We just assumed he quit because of the frying pan lady,” said Frye.

“He just left me there,” said Stanislaw, “no pan, no nothing. I was upset and I told the manager as much. Absolutely ridiculous!”

“We tried several times to get ahold of Mr. Dibiase,” says manager Allison Marcus. “Unfortunately, sometimes people just up and walk out. We clocked him out for the day and never expected to see him again.”

Months went by. All but Jeremy’s closest work friends forgot about him, noting he generally didn’t make much of an impression on people.

But then came that fateful mid-March day….

Witnesses described a man walking through the swinging doors that led to the loading dock, the area customers refer to as “the back”, wearing a filthy, torn store uniform flecked with snow. The man was burly, rugged, sported a full beard and a fresh scar on his right cheek.

It was Jeremy Dibiase.

“We almost didn’t believe it was him,” said Frye, “he looked like a completely different person, but when you looked closely you could see it was definitely Jeremy.”

“Everyone geekin’ out about the beard and shit,” says Octavia Moore, another coworker, “but why he covered in snow? We in Florida! And we don’t got a walk-in freezer or nothin’!”

“And he still didn’t bring out the cast iron pan!” said Debra Stanislawski, which she insisted we mention.

Jeremy Dibiase tells of what happened: “I knew that cast iron pan wasn’t back there, so I just wandered around the loading dock not really wanting to go back out and deal with this awful woman. After a while I realized I didn’t recognize anything, I didn’t even know where I was anymore. I don’t remember exactly how I got there.

“At first I tried finding my way back to the sales floor, but how do you find your way back when you don’t even know where you are? I couldn’t even get a cell phone signal. So I kept moving forward, and before I could even get acclimated to this place I’d already run afoul of the man who fancied himself The King on the Docks. To curry favor I married his daughter which thwarted an attempt by The Moonlit Clans to leverage her hand to usurp political powers. I did come to love her though.”

“I didn’t know Jeremy went and got himself married!” said Frye. “Mazel tov!”

“I don’t care where he been,” said Moore. “He just better come cover these shifts after we did for him when he got hisself lost on the damn loading dock.”

Thankfully, store management agreed to give Dibiase his job back, albeit at a reduced wage.

“We couldn’t just let him back at his old pay rate,” said Marcus, “not after he left us high and dry.”

But Jeremy Dibiase isn’t bothered at all. “It’s nice of them to let me work here again,” he said, “it’s what I know, but the currency of this realm no longer holds sway over me.”

When asked what brought him back to retail life, Dibiase, who now likes to be referred to as Dibiase, Patrician of the Lower Windlands, had this to say: “It wasn’t a plan of mine to return. My countrymen and I headed deep into the wilderness in hunt of The Great Wooly Behemoth. We cornered the tusked beast and made the mistake of believing we’d won the upper hand. Through ingenuity and sheer luck I managed to escape certain death, but in doing so became separated from my party. After trying fruitlessly to reunite with them I found myself in a strange, familiar place as if waking from life into a dream I once had. I found myself back on the sales floor and, for the sake of survival, resumed my old life.”

“Whatever the reason,” said Marcus at the pizza party held in Dibiase’s honor, “we’re glad to have him back!”

After this harrowing ordeal we wish Dibiase, Patrician of the Lower Windlands luck as he reacclimates himself into our society!

UPDATE –

Upon attempting to reach out to Dibiase and his coworkers prior to the publication of this story we learned of a new development in this tale:

A couple of weeks or so after returning to work, Dibiase was again confronted by a customer, this time about a wine bottle saver that had sold out before the customer could secure one. After what we’re told what was “several minutes” of the customer “walking up and down that poor boy’s ass” Dibiase just stood unaffected, unresponsive, his eyes glazed. When the customer finally asked what Dibiase was going to do for her he simply said “There’s nothing left for me here,” and disappeared, once again, into the back room, never to return.

Jeremy Dibiase had gone home.