The Salesman

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!” John Stape would know without having to google it that this famous line comes from Sir Walter Scott’s poem Marmiom. That’s because he’s an English teacher who loves his job. So much so that he’s woven himself a huge web of deceit. And he’s enjoying it.

I’m beginning to think what he really really wants to be is an actor. This week he had to pretend to be a furniture salesman in a store. But the real staff and customers didn’t know that he was just pretending. He was showing sofas to the Windasses who believe him to be an employee of the store.

I don’t suppose it would have worked if he’d gone to the floor manager and said ‘look, would you mind if I pretend to work here?’ So he had to spin one story to the Windasses, one to another customer who asked him for assistance, and a third story to the manager. A lot of balls to juggle, but then balls don’t seem to be a problem for our John.

Teaching deception or practicing

So I think I was wrong about John when I argued previously that he was simply someone who loved teaching. I now think he just loves the thrill of deception, and that could come from teaching or paving streets. Perhaps he is more like those people you hear about who practice medicine with no medical training or build bridges with no engineering background – just to see if they can get away with it.

Perhaps this started because of his love of teaching, but it’s moved way beyond that to deception for the sake of deceiving. Corrie Canuck posters are trying to diagnose John’s personality disorder. Tvor at Bluenose Corrie Blogger says “John’s turned into Ken Barlow on crack.” Ha!

Chesney seems to be the only one in the Battersby-Brown-Stape-Fishwick household with his head screwed on straight about this one. He summarized the situation very well: “you’re conning your employers, abusing people’s trust” to John. And to Fiz, “you’re a bigger idiot than I thought you were.”

Even Schmeichel seems to have decided that schmuck John can fend for himself. The jilted husband and ex-con who believes Stape is Fishwick is looking for vengeance. When he first came to the door, with only Chesney home, Schmeichel growled and buddy backed off. But when Mr. Ex-Con was in the house threatening John, Schmeichel just watched it all.

And in honour of today being Mother’s Day, I have to ask: what is Sunita doing? Why would she think for one second that taking those constantly wired kids to the shop was a reasonable thing to do? I’ve come to dread seeing those children on the screen.