Three Moments In The Monday Morning Of A Comic Book Retail Serf

Random Loiterer: "Excuse me, can we come in and look around?"

Me: "NO. IT'S NOT ALLOWED."

RL: "Hahahaha. Thank you."

****

First customer of the day is a subscriber who is particularly persnickety. He is in the middle of, once again, explaining to me the various discounts he gets at various stores, when Baron Von Poopypants comes in.

BvPP: "OH THANK GOD."

Persnickety Subscriber: "Are you ok?"

BvPP: "Yea. New England Comics always havs the books that I want but they never have them, you know? I need to buy the new Nick Spencer Spider-Man books so I can be up to date for my role playing, and they don't have them but thank god you do."

PS: "Oh."

BvPP: "My girlfriend" who doesn't exist "isn't going to be happy that I have all these Spidery books, but she likes the role playing, you know?"

PS: "Oh."

I tell him the price of his books.

BvPP: "I don't mean to be rude, but can I have a bag for ten cents?"

Me: "That's not rude at all. Here you go."

BvPP: "Off to role play!"

He stenches out.

PS: "I ... I thought he was talking about ... you know ... dice and ... ewwwwwwww ... Ewwww. Ewww. Ewwww."

***

Random Loiterer: "Hi!"

Me: "Hey. How are you today?"

RL: "Do you remember me?"

Me: "I don't."

RL: "My name is Steve. I'm Moira's brother."

Me: "Sorry. I don't know who Moira is."

RL: "I came in and sold you hundreds of dollars worth of Mad Magazines about thirty years ago."

Me: "Ah. I was in fifth grade thirty years ago. So you were talking to somebody else."

RL: "I'm pretty sure it was you."

I shrug.

RL: "Do you know who I would have talked to?"

Me: "Again. I was ten. I didn't live anywhere near here. I have no idea."

RL: "It's pretty much the same staff, right?"

Me: "No. There have been a few changes in the last Thirty Years."

RL: "Do you have any Mad Magazines?"

Me: "Sure. They're over here."

RL: "I probably sold them to you."

Me: "Thirty years ago? I think we've rotated through stock a couple of times since then."

RL: "They're all cover price, right? I'm just joshing you."

I've known many a Josh in my day, and all of them are cooler than anyone who has ever used the word "josh" as a verb. I'm really content that "adaming" isn't a buzz word that corpses use when they're being annoying.

RL: "Hey, this box set here? How much is it?"

Me: "I don't know, let me look it up."

It takes me a while because it's a box set of old EC hardcovers that have probably been in the store since he sold us those Mad Magazines. I can't figure out the actual name of the box set, there is no bar code on it, and it doesn't come up in the Diamond Search Engine. Just as I find it, he starts to haggle. Though I have not given him a price.

RL: "I've seen it online for about two hundred dollars."

Me: "Ok."

It's available from the publisher for $150. It's on Amazon from $85-$150.

RL: "I'll give you $125 for it."

This is perfectly reasonable. But he's annoying.

Me: "Call it $150?" which, again, is the actual price of it, if you order it new from the publisher.

RL: "Deal."

He picks up a couple of Mad Magazines, and some old Peanuts books. It comes to $249.73

Me: "That will be $265.73."

RL: "Can you knock that down to $250 for me?"

​Me: "I sure can."