"Jimmy, Have You Ever Watched Gladiator Movies?"
We now return you to your regularly scheduled yet utterly half-assed run blog. Yes, Virginia, there is an Interwebs connection once more. Not that you'll probably notice it, since this is a rather irregularly updated blog, but hey, it's better than hearing about me in the news. (And it would probably be something involving a lack of pants on my part too. Would you expect anything less from me?)
There's been a lot of random things that have happened since the last bit of nowhere, and I've already forgotten half of them. Then again, they're mostly "you had to be there" anecdotal things: Mel having too much fun ordering
William Sonoma cookbooks; people asking me if our store sells pantyhose and/or womens' underwear (to which, in case you yourself were confused, the answers are: no, and a profound no) ; and my newfound and "instant addiction" discovery of the manga
Hollow Fields, whose ghoulish faculty members are happily reminiscent of the Foulthings in Brom's
The Plucker.
Hollow Fields preview:
http://www.gomanga.com/webmanga/index.php?series=hollow&page=1Brom's work:
www.bromart.com/What can I say? I like my stories creepy.
Aside from that, there's been a whole lot of trivial moments and instances I've all but forgotten. Then again, I am someone who has trouble recalling what he ate for breakfast yesterday, so it's possible I'm just going senile before my time.
But I can regale you with two memorable moments from the store's colourful clientelle. First up is perhaps the only person I've never been able to maintain eye contact with. And this says something, since I've honed the ability to unflinchingly look at a customer while talking with them, regardless of whatever abnormality or disability they might have. This one woman, however, destroyed all of that.
Mostly because she had a moustache whose size and volume rivals Gary's. And despite hers being blonde, there was no way you could hide it as anything else. I must admit I was lost somewhere between staring on in disbelief, or bursting out in incredulous laughter.
Next up, we have an incident that, as I write this down, is giving me the disturbing sense of deja vu. Suddenly I'm wondering if this has happened to me before, and I blogged about it then, and right now I cannot locate the specific entry since it predates the "label" option. But I digress. To the encounter...
There was an older gentleman in an automated wheelchair who came into the store. And if you interacted with him for about 30 seconds, it would become rather obvious his mental faculties were not as up to speed as the rest of us. This unto itself is nothing, as I've pleasantly & politely interacted with others like him. However, the more I interacted with him, the more he began making comments and questions that raised my worry levels accordingly:
Okay - "You're a very nice friend."
Peculiar - "How old are you?"
Worrisome - "Do you work out?"
Creepy - "Could you flex your arm for me?"
Really Creepy - "Now raise it above your head."
Slowly Back Out Of The Room Creepy - "Could you turn to the side and hold that pose?"
There are times where I am willing to go above and beyond the usual levels of customer service for some people. This was decisively not one of them. The most he got was an arm flex, and by then my nervous laughter was attracting the worried looks of other customers on my behalf.
Like I said, this has a disturbingly familiar ring to it. I'll have to hunt the archives and see if I've been asked to pose for him before. In which case, I'm diving behind the cash desk the next time he rolls on in.
Labels: Brom, Hollow Fields, Madame Moustache, muscular posing that left me feeling sullied, Schreodinger's Internet
posted by Phillip at 9:24 PM
