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As some of the four people who read this know, I work in a small privately-owned toy store. Generally, I love my job, but occasionally we get some real class-acts in the store. Several days ago, a certain someone (you know who you are heart ) was bugging me that I should write more, rather than just spewing random plugs for things in my journal, and by golly, he's right. I've got a dearth of entertaining stories to pull from, all involving both the filthy weirdos and adorable little muffins who come into the store.
Right now, only a few really stand out. This entry may be a bit fractured, so bear with me. From now on, I intend to write about each freak as they walk through my lovely glass door.
There's one in particular that I think will haunt me forever. A boy, about ten or eleven, came into the store with his grandfather. The grandfather said "You can choose any toy you like under fifteen dollars." Now, we have a fair number of toys in that price range, everything from cards to Star Wars figures to smaller Transformers. So you can imagine how overwhelmed the boy was, looking around and trying to choose. So overwhelmed, in fact, that he somehow completely forgot that he had to go to the washroom. I'm sitting behind my counter when I hear "Um, I just went peepee in my pants." First of all, what kind of self-respecting ten year old still says "peepee"? Seconly, what kind of self-respecting person above the age of four still urinates in ******** public?! And then announces it to the world? The kid kept looking around, leaving a hideously stinky trail of pee wherever he went, and the grandfather just looked vaguely embarassed and paid for the toy he ended up choosing. I think it was an ArCee transformer, but I'm not sure anymore. Not an apology, not an offer to help clean, nothing. I ended up finding a bottle of bleach and mopping the entire floor three times before I felt remotely comfortable walking around again. I don't like other peoples' bodily wastes. sad
Another gem that springs to mind is the time this very quiet older woman, maybe in her late fifties or early sixties, came shuffling into the store, looking mildly apprehensive and carrying a wad of magazines. My manager and I (he was in there doing some paperwork) both asked if we could help her, and she was like "No, thank you, I'm just looking around..." But a few minutes later, she came up to my manager and said "Actually maybe you can... do you know if this woman works in the ICU at the Jewish General Hospital?", and with that she held open a magazine rather discretely, and my manager's face just blanched. He said no, and she shuffled out. The magazine she'd held up? Heavy Metal. For those of you who don't know it, it's essentially filled with paintings of nearly-nude women in fantasy situations. So if any of you are aware of a buxom lass carrying a sword and wearing a chain-mail bikini who happens to moonlight in the ICU of your local hospital, let me know! Someone is looking for her.
Not all of the stories are embarassing and ridiculous though, some of them are just cute and sweet. We sell the little Winnie-The-Pooh phone charms you can get in vending machines, only we sell them open so you can choose which one you get. There's this one little girl, she's about three, with flaming red hair and a dimple, and once a week after her music lessons, her mom brings her in to buy a Winnie charm. One day I asked her what instrument she played, and she happily informed that she's learning the "metallophone". Her mother looked vaguely exasperated and corrected her, saying it was a "xylophone." She looked up with the earnest expression of someone trying to explain something to a slow person, and said (in french mind you) "Well, yes, but it's made of metal, so it's a metallophone." Her mother has since stopped trying to correct her.
This same girl also refers to me as "Mrs. Winnie", since I'm the woman who doles out her weekly Winnie fix, which I find absolutely adorable.
I think that's enough for now. Lord knows I've got more than enough stories to share, but I'll keep them for now and spread them out over time.
 Moonblossom · Fri Feb 29, 2008 @ 04:01pm · 4 Comments |
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