Today was a day of tromping all over downtown to this government agency and that government agency to do all the paperwork necessary for the coffeehouse. The very very wee coffeehouse.
Agency 1, no problem. Agency 2, piece of cake. And the clerk is a huge Chargers’ fan, so we all blab excitedly — MB, the clerk, and I — about the upcoming game while she types my information into the computer.
Then there was Agency 3, the agency where I need to get my seller’s permit. You know, to sell stuff. I fill out the form and wait for the sad-faced woman in the pink cowl sweater to call my name. Anxiously, I cross and re-cross my legs, wiggle my foot inside my unbusiness-like Converse All-Stars. The pink lady strides by, with her pumps and her papers and her certain gloomy purpose while I huddle with nervous feet in a 1950s overcoat that once belonged to MB’s grandfather. All around us, people fill out paperwork, slouching and sighing irritably in those high school desk-chair combos as if they’re taking some lousy pop quiz. Luckily, we snagged the only real chairs in the room; however bowed and shabby, they’re preferable to the school desks. The whole room glows with that sick, bilious glow of institutional fluorescent lighting, as if the very air were queasy. I sense the Hispanic woman across the room staring at me and sneak a glance her way. She is staring. I look back down and wonder — is it the shoes? the coat? the jaundiced light making my face look jaundiced, too? Thankfully, though, I’m interrupted as the pink lady calls my name and ushers MB and me through the doorway and into the place where things get done, I guess.
We turn a sharp corner into the nearest cubicle.
“Take a seat,” growls a voice from a head that is under a desk. We just stand there, furrow our brows, roll our eyes towards one another. I bite my lip and wonder if we should do something to help the head be where a more business-like head should be. Before I can do anything, though, the head springs back up. It’s a woman with wire glasses and steel-wool hair and a big solid belly. A barrel, really, that bows out past her breasts. As she stands to her full — but short — height, I notice she’s got some kind of cane with pincers on the end. “I can’t get my pen,” she grunts, stabbing the pincers repeatedly at the floor. MB spies a pen on the edge of the desk. “Here’s one,” he offers. She ignores us, grunts and pinces some more, until she finally recovers her wayward pen. It’s the same kind of pen MB had found.
“Sit,” she commands again.
We do. She glares at the paperwork I give her.
“Okay. What kind of business is this? Sole proprietorship, what?”
“Well, sole proprietorship,” MB answers.
She glances down at the papers, up at MB, and barks, “If you are not a signatory, then you DO not answer. If you think you want to talk, go out in the hall.”
Her head is down again. We turn to each other and stare, open-mouthed and silent. She is everyone’s worst grade school teacher.
Ignoring us, she continues to peruse my information. Then, because I answered incompletely on the form regarding what, exactly, I’m going to sell, we suddenly have … a problem.
“So you’re not going to sell pastries, baked goods?”
Oops.
“Uhm, well, I most likely will.”
“Well, it just says ‘espresso, coffee, tea’ here. In that case, you don’t need a seller’s permit. You only need a seller’s permit on taxable items. These are not taxable.”
“Oh, well, what if I end up doing that?”
The bark again. “You’re not listening to me! You don’t need this permit.”
MB is sitting silently. I’m trying to read his mind, ask what he’d want me to ask, but I can’t think straight. She’s old and has pincers and I’m nervous.
“Okaay. What if I just add ‘pastries’ to that information that I put on there?”
“You can’t do that. I have to report what you first put down here.”
“How will anyone know what I first put down there?”
“I’ll know. I can’t do that.”
“Okay. Well, the wholesale coffee bean contract I’m getting requires that I have this permit.”
“No, it doesn’t. You don’t need this. If you’re selling hot pastries, you’d need this.”
“Okay. Define ‘hot pastries.'”
We are now glaring at each other. She openly sighs in my stupid stupid face.
“Okay. If you heat a bagel in a toaster, that’s taxable.”
“And if I don’t, it’s not?”
“That’s right.”
“Isn’t this just a little bit confusing?”
Silence.
“So I can’t just add to my information right now?”
“No.”
“So you won’t give me a permit today?”
“Nope. I can’t. Why are you making your life more difficult?”
Silence.
“So … if I want to serve pastries, I have to change my information, come back another day, and then I can get this permit?”
“That’s right.” She just plays with her rescued pen and stares at me.
MB stands quickly. I jump up. “Fine,” I bark at her, stomping my Converse as I go.
So, I’m wondering, do I need a permit for pincers?
