Page 27 of Late Fees

Tilly

1996

“You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, Weezer.”

Rolling my eyes at Sully, I grabbed the tape scanner and checked in all the returned tapes from the bin.

“Oh, really?” I asked, egging Sully on, which was one of my new favorite things to do. He was a decent guy, and I guess you could say we’d struck an unlikely friendship. But I’d never met anyone as confrontational as Sully, or someone who loved to argue as much as he did. The topic didn’t matter—movies, music, celebrities. Sully had an opinion on everything.

“Really,” he said, grabbing a stack of tapes and holding them under his chin.

“What’s the argument today?” Kevin asked, approaching the desk.

“Whether or not The Simpsons is funny.”

Kevin recoiled. “Are you kidding? It’s hilarious.”

Shrugging, I grabbed the tapes that a customer dropped into the bin. “Maybe it’s a guy thing.”

“The Simpsons is some of the most advanced humor out there,” Sully called from the children’s section. “Maybe you just don’t get it.”

“Are you kidding me? It’s simplistic and ridiculous. A five-year-old gets the humor, and I lose brain cells whenever I give it more than two minutes of my time.”

“Weezer, Weezer, Weezer,” Sully said, shaking his head as he walked back toward the counter. Half of his tape stack was gone.

“I told you, I like Weezer, but not enough to have that nickname. Don’t you get that by now?”

Sully waved me away. “Doesn’t matter.”

I was starting to think that Sully enjoyed pushing my buttons just as much as I liked pushing his. Especially when it came to my nickname.

“You should call her Purple Rain,” Kevin said, nudging me in the arm.

“See? That would be more fitting.”

Sully sneered and shook his head. “Too easy. Doesn’t have the nuance that Weezer does.”

“You’re ridiculous,” I said, turning to greet a customer at the register. After ringing her up and handing her the small stack of movies she was renting, I turned back to Sully. “And you have terrible taste in comedy.”

“Oh, yeah?” He challenged me, “Name something better. Anything.”

“How much time you got?” I asked, raising both eyebrows.

“Ooh, burrrrrrn,” Dutch taunted as he approached the counter. “Tilly one, Sully zip,”

As off-the-wall as Dutch could be, he was becoming one of my favorite coworkers. No matter what was happening at the store, he always brought levity with him without fail. And to me, that positivity was something to appreciate.

“Seriously, though, lay it on me,” Sully said, cocking one hip to the side and crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Um, let’s see…Friends.”

“Ugh.”

“Mad About You.”

“Puh-leeease.”

“Um…Seinfeld.”

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