Schedule
Mon 20: 12-7:30
Tue 21: 4-cl
Wed 22: 11-4:30
Thur 23: 10-5:30
Sat 25: 3-10
Alrighty, so here are two blog posts from a few years back that I found printed out from the previous blogsite and reprinted here for your... well, whatever you wanna do with 'em. I put them together because the general theme of these two posts appears to be how your hapless hero always somehow winds up being a magnet for the particularly screwy record store patrons over the years. This first one was when I was working at Wherehouse Music:
Monday, August 26, 2002
Now Playing: "Old Hat" by Nels Cline
Working in a record store nowadays, I realize that things haven't changed much since I worked in a record store over 10 years ago. Every day you deal with so many different types and personalities, and you are helping them pick out music, and your interactions with them are usually quite passionate, one way or another. In the past, I've had people threaten to kill me if I might have implied that one Van Morrison album was better than another. I have had dozens of guys ask me out on dates just because they think that I really like their favorite band, when all I am trying to do is help them pick out something that they might like. And I have had women declare their undying friendship to me just because we might agree on one or two similar bands or singers.
The latter happened to me yesterday at work. This woman came into the store with her husband and her two boys. I was helping the oldest boy try and find a certain Mighty Mighty Bosstones CD so I took him over to the used CD section and told him and his mom that these CD's could be listened to if they wanted to check for a certain song. The woman was... um... way, waaay too excited over the concept of "used" CDs, and and she started gushing to me over how both her boys were into the music that she and her husband like, like Black Sabbath and Bad Religion. She started asking me what I liked, and I gave her my standard line, "Oh, a wide variety of stuff." which could really mean anything, of course. But since we had been talking about the Bosstones I told her briefly about the time I saw them back in 1992 and the crowd in the pit threw me into the lead singer Dickey Barrett, knocking him and the microphone down onto the stage with me completely sprawled on top of him, and she laughed REAL LOUD and ran up and hugged me and told me how I had just made her shopping experience so incredible and she wanted to come see me again the next time I worked. She was acting like I was one of her oldest, most confided-in friends in the whole world.
Before she left, though, she did tell me a rather humorous story about when she worked at a local hotel down at the oceanfront and she was called upon to wake a guest for some reason or another who was in town touring and had to get back on schedule. It was Biggie Smalls. He had a show in town that night, had drank a dozen bottles of champagne which were scattered all over the room, and he was so sound asleep it took her and three other people to roll this enormous man back and forth until he finally woke up.
This next one about a month earlier when I worked at Fantasy:
Saturday, June 29, 2002
Shawn and I were standing around the cash register today when this young blonde girl burst in, ran up to us, and loudly announced "I NEED KNIVES!", then proceeded to walk away just as Shawn was getting ready to say, "Well, we have some lovely knives right here... (gesturing towards knives in glass counter)". Instead the girl races toward the back of the store where the sword room is. Shawn and I gave each other odd looks, and then followed her into the sword room. She immediately points to several pocket knives with Confederate flags and pictures of Robert E. Lee and Richard R. Reed (founder of the Klu Klux Klan). "I'm buying these for my boyfriend to hang on his wall!" she bellows. How charming. Then she yells "Wanna hold my snake?!!" It is then that I realize that she has a baby ball python wrapped around her wrist. She thrusts it into my hand. She asks if it is okay to have pets in the store. I say its fine so long as they don't bite or poop on the floor, as I hold this creature and hope that it does neither to me. I give her back her "precious" and get her knives to bring up to the register for Shawn to ring up for her. She thrusts the snake at Shawn and screams, "Isn't it adorable? She fills my soul with just so much PEACE!!" Then she turns to me and says, "What is the name of the snake in The Jungle Book?!" I tell her "Kaa". "THAT'S IT!! she roars, "That's her name now!!" and she grabs her snake and her knives and runs out the door like her pants were on fire. We watch her go, and then Shawn looks right at me and in a perfect impression of Michael Palin from Monty Python' The Holy Grail exclaims, "What a strange person!" I thought I was going to wet myself laughing.
Tue 21: 4-cl
Wed 22: 11-4:30
Thur 23: 10-5:30
Sat 25: 3-10
Alrighty, so here are two blog posts from a few years back that I found printed out from the previous blogsite and reprinted here for your... well, whatever you wanna do with 'em. I put them together because the general theme of these two posts appears to be how your hapless hero always somehow winds up being a magnet for the particularly screwy record store patrons over the years. This first one was when I was working at Wherehouse Music:
Monday, August 26, 2002
Now Playing: "Old Hat" by Nels Cline
Working in a record store nowadays, I realize that things haven't changed much since I worked in a record store over 10 years ago. Every day you deal with so many different types and personalities, and you are helping them pick out music, and your interactions with them are usually quite passionate, one way or another. In the past, I've had people threaten to kill me if I might have implied that one Van Morrison album was better than another. I have had dozens of guys ask me out on dates just because they think that I really like their favorite band, when all I am trying to do is help them pick out something that they might like. And I have had women declare their undying friendship to me just because we might agree on one or two similar bands or singers.
The latter happened to me yesterday at work. This woman came into the store with her husband and her two boys. I was helping the oldest boy try and find a certain Mighty Mighty Bosstones CD so I took him over to the used CD section and told him and his mom that these CD's could be listened to if they wanted to check for a certain song. The woman was... um... way, waaay too excited over the concept of "used" CDs, and and she started gushing to me over how both her boys were into the music that she and her husband like, like Black Sabbath and Bad Religion. She started asking me what I liked, and I gave her my standard line, "Oh, a wide variety of stuff." which could really mean anything, of course. But since we had been talking about the Bosstones I told her briefly about the time I saw them back in 1992 and the crowd in the pit threw me into the lead singer Dickey Barrett, knocking him and the microphone down onto the stage with me completely sprawled on top of him, and she laughed REAL LOUD and ran up and hugged me and told me how I had just made her shopping experience so incredible and she wanted to come see me again the next time I worked. She was acting like I was one of her oldest, most confided-in friends in the whole world.
Before she left, though, she did tell me a rather humorous story about when she worked at a local hotel down at the oceanfront and she was called upon to wake a guest for some reason or another who was in town touring and had to get back on schedule. It was Biggie Smalls. He had a show in town that night, had drank a dozen bottles of champagne which were scattered all over the room, and he was so sound asleep it took her and three other people to roll this enormous man back and forth until he finally woke up.
This next one about a month earlier when I worked at Fantasy:
Saturday, June 29, 2002
Shawn and I were standing around the cash register today when this young blonde girl burst in, ran up to us, and loudly announced "I NEED KNIVES!", then proceeded to walk away just as Shawn was getting ready to say, "Well, we have some lovely knives right here... (gesturing towards knives in glass counter)". Instead the girl races toward the back of the store where the sword room is. Shawn and I gave each other odd looks, and then followed her into the sword room. She immediately points to several pocket knives with Confederate flags and pictures of Robert E. Lee and Richard R. Reed (founder of the Klu Klux Klan). "I'm buying these for my boyfriend to hang on his wall!" she bellows. How charming. Then she yells "Wanna hold my snake?!!" It is then that I realize that she has a baby ball python wrapped around her wrist. She thrusts it into my hand. She asks if it is okay to have pets in the store. I say its fine so long as they don't bite or poop on the floor, as I hold this creature and hope that it does neither to me. I give her back her "precious" and get her knives to bring up to the register for Shawn to ring up for her. She thrusts the snake at Shawn and screams, "Isn't it adorable? She fills my soul with just so much PEACE!!" Then she turns to me and says, "What is the name of the snake in The Jungle Book?!" I tell her "Kaa". "THAT'S IT!! she roars, "That's her name now!!" and she grabs her snake and her knives and runs out the door like her pants were on fire. We watch her go, and then Shawn looks right at me and in a perfect impression of Michael Palin from Monty Python' The Holy Grail exclaims, "What a strange person!" I thought I was going to wet myself laughing.
posted by Melissa at 10:01 PM
4 Comments:
When I voluneered at the library we had people who were so passionate about a certian type of book who reminded me of snake girl.
I still get whacked out customers all the time. So many in fact I've since stopped mentioning them because it's nearly a daily routine with some of the regulars.
We have a guy that comes into my store and my previous location-
he comes in - always looks paranoid- spends 5 minutes to an hour looking at the used stuff and then leaves buying nothing and looking angry-
I have tried to find out what it is he is searching for - but he won't say and just leaves in a huff- at least once every 2 weeks
We haven't had any big time weirdos in while. although we had about three in a row in one week.
The crazy yelling guy whom I thought was talking loudly into his Bluetooth phone and then realized that he didn't have a phone.
The guy who ran up to me, laid face down on the floor at my feet with his arms stretched out, yelled into the floor, and then got up and ran off.
The guy who crapped on the floor in front of the MGM New DVD Release display.
Post a Comment
<< Home