Re-Re-Re-Retail Wednesday

If you stopped over for the Primal Scream Blogfest the post is below or you can just click here or you can read your way down, because I will guarantee you at least one chuckle if you read this post.

I feel like I need some sort of official Sonshine stamp: Satisfaction Guaranteed

Except then it makes me accountable to entertain, oh the horrors!

All right, as you can tell I'm kind of in a weird mood. I think it's the combination of the emotional hangover from last night's Lost and the after effect of reading all of these heart-thumping, heart-attack inducing blog posts from the blog fest.

For those of you new to the blog, I do this every week - I work in a bookstore (Borders to be precise) and a couple of months ago my sis and I were talking about all the insane people you meet in retail. So we decided to do Retail Wednesday! And then people started reading and laughing along with me and suddenly the idiots that shop at my store were no longer annoyances, but humor fodder.

which is kinda like bantha fodder, except with less drool and more mocking.

so if you come to my store, beware, because pretty much all of my coworkers now share their crazy stories with me so I can put them up here for the world to laugh at!

Now onto the Awards!

Outright Bizarre Award:

lemaniesunshine wanted me to do this as a video, because I was reenacting it for everyone, but I'm too lazy to do that, so you'll have to just picture this in your head. Besides, last time I tried to upload video it took like 4 hours. so. Yeah.

I was talking to coworker A about a project. A man comes up behind A, extremely close and suddenly announces, "I need the Dr. Who movies!"

A is so taken aback and startled that she cannot speak and so I offer to take him over to the glass cases where we lock up our TV DVDs so they do not get stolen by the stupid hit and runners like the guy who's been in like 4 times in the last 2 weeks, but he's too fast and smart for us to actually catch him! ahem.

Anyways. I take the man over to the cases and he bends over so that his entire body is covering the case that holds the Dr. Who videos.

(On a totally separate aside, my sis just got me completely hooked on Dr. Who and I think I may just be a little bit smitten with Daniel Tennant.)

Come on, just look at that face!

Back to the story (good grief, this is going to be a long rambly post)

So as the man is leaning over the case, he yips at me, "Can you open it so I can see it?"

Me: Yes, if you move out of the way.

He stands up, but doesn't move back so I can barely get in to unlock it. The second I do he dives in so quickly that he nearly knocks heads with me.

This is an exact replication of the incident

I jumped back, barely clearing his noggin and stumbled back a few paces, startled. He looks for about 1/4 of a second, announces, "I can't stand" and plops himself down in front of the case. Sitting cross-legged on the floor. This is a 50-something man. weird.

He rifles through the handful of Dr. Who DVDs we have. "This would be great, but it's too expensive right now." "I already have this one." "Okay, I'll take this."

Hoists himself up off the ground and walks away. I am so flabbergasted (and honestly trying not to laugh) that I don't even know what to do.

No, wait, I do know - tell everyone and then write about it here :)

Impatience Award:

Yesterday I was helping a woman place an order. She was extremely abrupt - to the point of rudeness - all throughout my encounter with her. Cutting off my sentences, interrupting, jabbing her finger in my face at the computer screen, accusing me of going too fast (when I hadn't done anything, literally). But the last straw came when I clicked "continue" to go to the final ordering page and she snapped after .0000003 seconds, "What are you doing!?"

I looked at her. "Waiting for the page to load."

At which time it did. She glared at me. I think she was trying to find some way to blame me for the computer lag.

At the end she said, "Thanks you've been very helpful" and then stalked away. I wanted to throw something at her, but I don't think that's allowed. *sigh*

Besides, that point isn't nearly sharp enough

Weird Reaction Award:

A customer was walking past the info desk. She turns to me and says, "Where are your books on mythology?"

Me: For kids or for adults?

Girl: For adults.

Me: They're right over here, let me show you. (start walking in the direction)

Girl: (walking in opposite direction) I just wanted to know.

Umm... I haven't told you or shown you anything. And why would you want to know if you don't want to go there? And what part of this exchange makes any sense?

Most Obnoxious Award:

Woman: Do you have journals with locks?

Me: For children?

Woman: For adults.

Me: I'm not sure. Let's check.

Woman: (in threatening, obnoxious voice) Am I going to have to go all the way over to Barnes & Nobles? Because I know they have them.

Me: (well, look at that! Because you outrageously threatened to take your annoying self to my competitor, the journals have magically appeared on our shelves! You should try this more often!)

Your threats are about as scary as Don Carnage's were.

Don't you just LOVE Tale Spin! I got a set for Christmas! Whee!

Wrong Conclusions Award:

Coworker R is working at the register. A customer purchases one small book, so she holds up the bag before putting the book in it and asks if they need one. The customer smiles. "No thanks, I'll save a tree!"

Um... quick science lesson:

Plastic bags like this -

Don't come from trees like this -

just saying.

That's it for Retail Wednesday!