This Job Would Be Great, If...

Holy Crap, The Adventures of Pete & Pete Season 1 is coming out on DVD! Your tiny human minds cannot possibly fathom how excited I am by this. But more on that tomorrow.

Longtime readers of the ISB will recall that I have what some might call a love-hate relationship with the customers who come into the store. That is to say, I'm quite fond of Phil, Mike Autry, and a couple others (including that scrappy li'l pirate Porto), and think of the rest as some sort of hellspawned plague sent to punish me for my transgressions.

No offense.

Point being, I try to keep an open mind with my particular brand of angry, bitter customer service, but some people are just asking to be removed from continuity.

Take, for instance, a gentleman that some of you might know, who rolled in tonight. I'm not going to lay out his name, but let's just say that he's the most phenomenally unsuccessful gigolo I've ever known. Yes, this guy sells his body to the night, a difficult task considering that he's about five-two, legally blind, and almost deaf. The fact that he's not very attractive (not by my standards, anyway) only exacerbates the problem. So here's the conversation we have today.

"Hey, Gigolo Sam"--that's the name I'll be using for legal purposes--"what's new?"

"Y'all given Matt the day off?"

"No, man, Matt doesn't work on Mondays."

"THAT'S WHAT I SAID! He's OFF!"

Well actually, bro, that's NOT what you said. But I'll concede this round. "Whatever."

So this continues as he gets a few comics and has some difficulty paying for them--being a Midnight Cowboy's rough these days--and finally gets ready to leave. Also, I'm almost sure that during this time he licked an issue of Wonder Woman while I back was turned. He decides to special order an issue of Superman, completely ignoring that he refused to buy the issue of Nightwing we special ordered for him last week, and doesn't move until I write it down. Then he looks at me and goes:

"You tell Matt I said hi."

"Sure, Gigolo Sam."

"I mean it. He workin' tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

"Well you tell him I said hi."

"Okay."

"You work tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I'll be here."

"Well don't forget to tell him I said hi."

"Okay, man."

"He gonna be in on Wednesday?"

"Yeah, he works Wednesdays."

"Well I'll come by and say hi then."

Cripes!

Now the craziest thing about this is that that's not NEARLY the weirdest customer encounter I had today. The other one's a two-parter that goes back to Saturday when a guy calls up.

"Wizards and Villains." This is the shop name I'll be using to avoid lawsuits.

"Is this Wizards and Villains?!"

"Uh, yeah."

"Where y'all at?"

"In the Boozer shopping center, corner of Broad River and Bush."

"In the Dutch Square Mall?!"

"No, sir, the Boozer shopping center."

"Dutch Square center?!"

"... No, man, we're next to that."

"Oh. Y'all ain't in Dutch Square?"

"... No."

So ten minutes later the guy walks in, sporting what some fashion afficionados might term "a Goddamn trainwreck." He was wearing a button-down shirt, but left it completely open, with nothing underneath. To his credit, he did have a tan, but the term "revolting" sprang to mind. Anyway, I get a call from him today. After answering, we go back and forth with "Hello?" for a few minutes, then finally settle down to brass tacks.

"Look, man, when I was in there y'all said you could tell me the price of a comic?"

I hate doing this, by the way. People are invariably upset by how much their comics are worth. I actually had to explain the principles of supply and demand to a woman who wanted to know why her 12-cent issue of Hulk wasn't going for more than five bucks. "Yeah, if you can give me the title and the issue number, I can look it up."

"You need the title and a number?"

"Yeah."

"Um, okay, man... Where's the title at?"

...

...

SWEET MOTHER OF MYSTERY! Did he just ask me where the title is?! On a comic book?! I mean, I've had people call me claiming their mid-80s Marvel comics didn't have numbers on the cover, but that's ridiculous! I mean, you've all seen comics. You can find the title pretty easily, right? It's mind-boggling.

"It's, uh, on the cover."

"The cover?!"

"Yeah. Top center."

There was a prolonged silence. "Man, I'm gonna have to call you back."

I was stunned. Not only did he not know where the title was, but he needed utter concentration to find it. So he hangs up.

Half an hour later--and I can only assume he used all of that time locating the title--he calls back.

"Man, I got that title and number for you."

"All right, man, what'cha got?"

"It's Huckleberry Hound, and in the corner it says Gold Key."

"Okay, cool. What's the number?"

"One-zero-zero-five-six-dash-four-zero-three-two."

I'm not even sure what that number could possibly represent, but I know this: No comic has a nine-digit issue number. So I decide to just check the 'Street and give him the average price. So I put him on hold, look it up, and pick the reciever back up, only to find out that he hung up.

All that trouble, and he didn't even stick around. Maybe he decided to go buy a shirt.