Stepping around me like I was a potted plant, the assistant manager silently examined my purchase tags and walked away. But I was not offended; I was deeply impressed.

With impressive strategic prowess, this national office supply chain had taken a lesson from animal husbandry — specifically, from primate rehabilitation. To ensure that injured monkeys can successfully assimilate back into the wild, caretakers meticulously avoid establishing any sort of human-to-monkey connection, especially through eye contact.

A lesser customer, one needing attention, might have departed for the wilds without a purchase. But I understood. I was being trained, being made ready.

For the past 30 minutes, I’d flitted about the furniture displays, tape measure in hand — comparing, sitting at, opening and closing, standing back and imagining. No one had interfered, even to say hi. No one had dared to suggest I that might be in need of help, that I might need information, that I might need someone to consult.

I was a consumer empowered. And the trust placed in me came at no small risk because I was spending a wad.

When I first walked up to the sales counter, the well-trained cashier properly ignored me for a few moments, allowing me to stand on my own two feet — until the person she was chatting with audaciously suggested that she attend to me.

Carefully avoiding my eyes and without a word, she took the product tags I’d collected — a desk, filing cabinet and floor lamp — then walked to the phone and paged, “Furniture to the front, please.”

We stood in silence, not looking. The assistant manager came and left, but I remained securely potted with my soil and fertilizer spike.

Then from the back of the store, the furniture fellow — my guru — arrived. Not only did he avoid eye contact and speech, he actually frowned at my purchase tags. Something was definitely wrong, but without a word, he retreated back down the aisle.

I stood alone at the counter and, for what seemed a long time, practiced not knowing. Then my teacher reappeared and, standing before me, spoke to the tags: “None of these are in stock.”

Another long pause, apparently so I could practice asking if I could ever get them. When I didn’t respond properly, he continued the lesson: “I can order these and have them delivered to you. Maybe Friday.”

Fine.

“I’ll need to write it up,” he said, walking away again. But I was a quick learner and knew not to follow. He would surely have to come back to ask my name.

He returned with a ring binder full of order forms which he laid on an empty checkout lane. Then he modeled for me the proper terseness of efficient business communication: “Name ... address ... phone ... how do you intend to pay? I’ll have to call this in.”

But halfway into the product numbers and without removing the phone from his ear, he looked in my general direction, still carefully avoiding the eyes: “The lamp’s been discontinued. Do you want to select another one?”

No, it was the only one I liked.

He finished the order and hung up. “You’re set up for Friday,” he reported. “But if the truck doesn’t get to you before 6, don’t be alarmed. I’ve seen it in town as late as 8. If you do get worried, though, you can call me.”

Wow, this guy was good! A three-level, encapsulated test of my progress: First, to see whether I was smart enough to ask his name so I could call him later. Second — by giving me a first name only and no business card — to check my memory. And third, to see if I could resist worrying, even waiting on a delivery after dark.

Amazed, I left the store and drove home. But on the way it occurred to me: I could have bought the display model of the discontinued lamp. So I called back.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I thought about that after you left.” Another test to see how long it would take me to figure things out.

When I stopped by for the lamp a couple days later, I saw him in the store. “You know what?” he began. “The day after you were here, we got in every one of those items, desk and all. You can have a lamp in a box.”

Apparently, I was progressing. Not only did he glance briefly at my eyes, but his trust in me was growing. Without even casual inquiry, he knew I didn’t need the furniture right away, that I could wait.

On Friday the truck arrived, late but not quite dark. When I unpacked the box and checked the contents, though, I noticed the desk top and some other parts were scraped. So I called the manufacturer’s 24-hour help line, using the 800 number in the booklet.

Their response left me stunned. Not only did I not have to describe the damage in detail, I didn’t even have to lug the defective parts out to my car and return them to the store. It was much too easy, too quickly handled. Under such pampering I would grow soft and surely perish.

And to compound the insult, 10 minutes later the manufacturer called me back. One of the parts was on back-order, and the voice on the phone had the audacity to suggest that I let them proceed to ship the ones in stock, then complete my assembly when the final part was available.

Had I not already proven my capacity to deal with the unknown? To endure long waits without worrying or a delivery after dark?

It has taken several days of furniture-assembly therapy, but I can now report I have shed the insult like a molted feather. And in this moment of victory — in sight of a topless desk and standing firmly on my soiled and well-rooted feet — I toss away the fertilizer spike of my dependence and declare myself fully prepared for release into the wilds of caveat emptor, into the low-touch new-millennium retail void of servicelessness, of informationlessness, of humanlessness.

Open the cage. I am primate. I am consumer.

(Lew Garnett is a graduate student and writer.)

 

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