Honest Conversation Is Overrated
Actual Human Interactions Witnessed Or Overheard
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
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Some dude just walked up to the coffeehouse counter and asked if the toilets were coin operated.
"Last time, I got in, did my business, and had to crawl out under the door because I didn’t have a dime." Did you come here directly after the coma you’ve been in since 1943?
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I just noticed that the bag of cookies my father demanded I take with me when I left the island have a red, white, and blue color scheme, not because they’re from the Fourth Of July, but because they are “Proudly made in the USA.”
Well, thank God. I’m tired of those damned Mexican cookies taking our good old American jorbs. Boss: “Hey, Adam. The artists left behind some beer. Would you like to take it home?”
Me: “Sure.” Opens bag. Discovers ten cans of Busch Light. “You and I have different definitions of the word ‘beer’.” Random Customer: “I am so tired of all the racism in this county. The Republicans calling Barack Obama a monkey. It’s bullshit. All these racist bastards who don’t want to vote for Barack Obama because he’s Black. Don’t vote on someone for their color, you vote on someone for their ideas. To vote on their skin, that’s just wrong. I wish people would call them out on that.” Forty seconds of unnecessary patter go by before he says “I”m really glad Clinton is backing him. Bill, not Hillary. I don’t know why they even tried to run Hillary. Who’d vote for a woman? They’re all menopause and emotions. Too stupid to be President.”
Me: “Didn't you just say you should vote on someone for their ideas, and not their skin tone? So, generalizing by race is wrong, but stereotyping a gender is totally acceptable?” RC: “They’re different. I mean, we can argue over why no one would vote for a squirrel for president, and you could say I was generalizing by species. The two things are not comparable. Women can not ever be Presidents.” And that, your honor, was why I beat him to death with my industrial sized stapler. There is a guy who comes in every week and is an absolute dillweed. Every week it’s the same gripe about how we don’t have some manga starring underage girls. How he wastes so much money driving here, and wishes we would put all of our inventory up on a website. Every week, the same gripes, and oddly misinformed “facts” about comic book and novel distribution.
I’ve never liked the guy. Today, he came in wearing a “Rush Limbaugh, Last Man Standing” t-shirt. I no longer feel bad about judging him. Random customer comes in, throws his backpack on the floor and says “Don’t touch that, it’s fucken fragile.”
I refrain from touching it. Thirty seconds later, he asks “Where is your ten cent comic bin.” Apparently, he didn’t like my answer “1974.” because he picked up his backpack full of Faberge eggs and left. The Little League World Series would be much more interesting if the color commentators would just make up facts, instead of “Billy wears hats all the time. Even when he goes swimming. His grandfather calls him Billy Hat Trick”, I’d rather hear “Billy has made some remarkable plays today given the amount of peyote he just ingested. Billy plays under the influence of a different drug every day. His grandfather calls him My Daughter’s Horrible Mistake.”
Tonight’s Awesome Customer was a guy in his fifties. He came in with his two children, and two friends in their forties or so. They were wandering around the store talking about The Stooges and Red Hot Chili Peppers , while the young son (about eleven or so) flipped through Mad Magazines, occasionally interrupting. His father addressed him by names a number of times.
It appeared they were about to leave when the older friend said “You’re not going to believe what I just found.” and picks up our lone Kiss Army action figure. The guy turns to me and says: “You might not guess this from looking at me, but I am a huge Kiss fan.” "Your son’s name is Detroit. Your love of Kiss does not phase me." Customer comes in while I’m fairly busy. I’m on the phone with the owner, a man is asking me about boxes to ship comics to the troops, Crazy Mark #1 is asking me what the prices are for a half dozen different books, Crazy Marc #2 is trying to haggle with me over variant covers, and this guy clears his throat at me:
Random Customer: Who is this you’re playing? Me: Who is..? Oh, the music? RC: Yea. Me: James Brown. Him: He has a very retro sound. The store goes completely silent, except for James Brown screeching “Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!” Me: It’s. James Brown. This album is about forty years old. RC: It sounds it. 12 or 13 year old girl is whining about leaving. “I’m real tired of being in a boy’s store. I want to goooooo.” Whine whine whine “Mooooooooom.”
Mom: “This isn’t a boy’s store. This store has nothing to do with gender. I got some of my favorite books here. If you don’t like it, say you don’t like comics, or that you don’t like books. But don’t say it’s a boy’s store because that’s simply not true.” |
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