[WP] You get locked in a department store one night and learn the truth about mannequins.

The store will be closing in five minutes. Please make all final purchases. The store will be closing in five minutes.

I needed that job. I was going to kill the interview. I knew I had the best resume of all the candidates. But why was it so hard to find a suit that fit me correctly? Why, why, WHY? It had been an hour and a half since I arrived at Teddy Zero’s, the lowest cost, hundred-and-one year old department store in the entire state. In that time frame I had tried on a pin-striped navy blue suit with matching pants. It was beautiful. The pants fit perfectly! The jacket: tight on the shoulders. The next size up was too loose. Okay, I guess I’ll find something else, I had thought. A black suit now. The jacket fit perfectly, but I couldn’t find a single pair of matching pants that fit my waist. And god-damn it, why did I drink a coffee before coming here? Where’s the bathroom?

So I left Teddy Zero’s low cost department store and headed toward the food court where I knew I could find a bathroom. An hour until close now. I arrived at the bathroom, a light sweat on my forehead subtly exhibiting the ruthless determination of my sphincter. One toilet down for maintenance. The other was occupied, with one individual already waiting. Twenty minutes later, after the light sweat transformed into a few runny beads, I was able to relieve my sphincter of its honorable duty and empty my bowels. That took me seven minutes. The walk back to the store took me another three.

I walked into the large entrance of Teddy’s, past the perfect, plastic mannequins, with thirty minutes until closing. I was suppressing anxiety. One of the mannequins, I noticed, was wearing my first-choice suit. 

I found another suit, this one gray. It had my waist size. The jacket fit well. But this was one of the department stores where you needed a key to get into changing room. And apparently this time of night, the changing room attendant is also the cashier. And this cashier was engaged in a communication battle with an old woman who couldn’t speak a lick of English, brandishing coupons with “JC Penny 15% off your entire purchase” imprinted in large red font on a white background.

Twenty minutes. That’s how long it took for the cashier to take care of that customer. Twenty minutes. That left ten minutes until close. The cashier slash changing room attendant let me into the changing room, and I spent five minutes discovering that the pants were too long. Which brings us to the present moment.


I prop open the changing room door with a hanger, determined to stay until I have a suit. The man who unlocked the door for me is no longer in sight. Bring the suit downstairs and I’ll cash you out when you’re ready, he had told me. I frantically grab a suit off that rack that’s in my size, finding matching pants also in my size. It was gray. But an ugly color gray, much too light. It wouldn’t have been my first choice. Or second. Or third. Or…But I needed this job, and I wasn’t about to show up to a professional interview looking like a disgruntled college student. I go back to the changing room and yes! – it fits. The store has now been technically closed for ten minutes, so I’m a little apprehensive about the reception I’ll get downstairs. Well, I bring the suit downstairs and go to the checkout counter in the center of the floor. The lights are dim now. Each clothing rack has an accompanying shadow. The only sounds to be heard are the hum and rattle of the ventilation. As far as I can tell, it’s just me and the mannequins.

“Hello?” I call out into the barren store. No response.

“Hello? I’m ready to make my purchase now,” I say again. Twenty minutes since closing. No response. So I wait at the desk. And I wait. Surely someone is still in the store. Finally I see a body coming down the escalator nearby. 

“Excuse me,” I say as the man becomes visible. “I would like to check out.” It is not the same man who let me into the changing room. I see that he is wearing the first suit that I had tried on. Excellent taste.

“Kinda late for a purchase, isn’t it?” he says.

“Yes sir. And I’m deeply sorry. Really, I am. It’s just I have an important-”

“You know,” he says, “I was once caught in a department store after hours. Terrible, terrible experience that was. It happened a century ago.”

Not a bright dude, because by the looks of him, he clearly meant to say decade. 

“Hm. Well I am trying to get out of here as soon as possible,” I say. I put the suit on the counter as he makes his way toward the high-tech checkout machine.

“I felt so flustered when I got stuck in here all those years ago, after closing. Don’t you feel the same way?” he says with a chuckle.

“I do,” I say. He was correct. It was embarrassing. I don’t know why but it was.

“You know what will make you feel better, son? Go get changed into the suit. Wear it outta here. You’ll feel like a million bucks, I tell ya. I don’t need to scan it; I got buttons on this here machine. You go do that while I ring you up,” he says. “Go on!”

And I can’t say exactly what makes me do it, but I do as he suggests. He hands me a key and I go into the changing room. And because I am already wearing dress shoes – purchased from none other than Teddy Zero’s – my outfit is complete. I come out of the changing room feeling like a million bucks, like I never want to take the suit off. When I get back to the counter the man is no longer alone. It seems as if all the closing employees have gathered together to see my checkout and departure. And how well dressed they all are! I see a beautiful summer dress on a girl who looks like she should be a model. A designer sleeveless shirt on a young man with arms like a Greek god. There were at least eight others, all equally well dressed in an array of styles. And I can see even more people wandering the store further back. They must have all been together in the back part of the store, having a meeting of something. Another strange thing I notice: all the mannequins are gone. Put away for the night, I presume, for some reason or another.

The party at the checkout counter greets me with enthusiasm. 

“Very handsome!”

“So professional!”

“He must be such a womanizer!” 

My cheeks redden. “So what’s the bill?” I say to the man who is checking me out.

“Oh you don’t worry about that just yet. We’d like to admire you further! Here, come stand on this pedestal,” he says, gesturing toward a pedestal that had been the home of a mannequin wearing a beautiful summer dress several minutes prior.

So I walk over and step up and feel both embarrassed and elated to be the center of attention.

“I once stayed in a store past closing!” one of them says. I look and see it was the Greek-god-arms one. 

“Strike a pose!” the cashier in my first-choice suit shouts enthusiastically. “You’re the powerful business man, show it to the world!”

I do as he says. Back straight, arms crossed, with a powerful, stern look on my face. I feel myself become a powerful business man. The Greek-god-arms man continues:

“I stayed past closing. And past midnight. Then past opening the next day. That was a decade ago and still I stay and stay and stay!”

My body stiffens. I can’t move a muscle. In fact, I no longer have muscles to move, only plastic. Through frozen eyes I watch as the mannequins return to their pedestals, each characterizing the ideal image a shopper hopes to achieve. I feel so powerful.
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