Howdy again folks, long time no read. I still have no internet connection, but I'm visiting the folks here so I figured I'd take advantage and proclaim my as of yet not dead status. It was a busy holiday season at the bookstore, but I enjoy those. Mostly because the more people we have in the store the more weird things I see or hear. Seriously, it's amazing what you can observe it you just sit in a store sometime and just listen. Here are a few selections from this year: Scene: Two teenage girls stop on their way by a table full of Dan Brown books and one, obviously being the scholar of the two, lectures the other Teenage Girl 1: "Oh! The Da Vinci Code. I never saw the movie. Was it any good?" Teenage Girl 2: "It was okay I guess, but the book was a lot better." Teenage Girl 1: "What's it about?" Teenage Girl 2: "It's all about how like, Da Vinci and Jesus were friends and Da Vinci painted a bunch of stuff about Jesus in all his stuff and this guy learns all about him. It was great." Scene: A couple are looking at a display of classic authors. More accurately, the woman looks at the books while the man shifts restlessly obviously wanting to leave. The woman begins to tease the man about not being comfortable in a book store and begins to question his intelligence. Woman: You probably don't even know who any of these authors are, do you? Man: Yes I do! I've read some of them. Woman: Which ones? Man: "I know H.G. Wells, Jack London, and... .... Oscar Will-day? Woman: *laughter* Scene: I just started work for the day and pause from my busy schedule (reading, talking, occasionally putting books away) to answer the store phone. I regret that decision. The customer on the line was a rather elderly sounding man who sounded a bit cranky Nester: Barnes & Noble Downtown, this is Adam. How can I help you? Customer: Is this Barnes & Noble? Nester: Yes. Customer: Are you Downtown? Nester: ....Yes. Customer: You said your name was Adam? Nester: Yep. I did. Customer: Okay Adam, do you guys sell jelly beans? Nester: What? Customer: Jelly beans! I need to buy some jelly beans. Nester: ......We might have some books about them? Customer: No, that's not what I want! Any idea where I can get some? Nester: A candy store? Customer: Eh, thanks. *click* And now the winner for dumbest statement of the year: Scene: Two young women looking at the magazine stand and discussing their findings. Woman 1: Hey, here's Cosmo....wait, this is the Spanish Edition. Everything's in Spanish. Woman 2: Oh, that sucks.... Wait, here's another one...Hey, this one says it's the British Edition, but it's in English. Woman 1: Weird. I love people.
Customers... if we weren't all someone's customer, I'd throw in a generality about how dumb they all are
But some are dumber than others... This was overheard in a local hardware store where a customer double-parked, rushed in, ignored the queue and went straight to the counter. Customer 1: I'm in a bit of a hurry here, how much is that garden incinerator? Assistant: I'll be with you in a moment, sir. I'm serving this lady. Customer 1: Look, dammit, I only want to know the price of the thing. Assistant: I'll be with you in a moment, sir. I'm serving this lady. Customer 2: It's alright, I need some more things, just tell him the price. Assistant: Thank you...It's £23. Customer 1: What?! That's expensive! Haven't you got anything cheaper? Assistant: No sir, that is the only type we carry. Customer 1: Come on, you must have something cheaper. Assistant: Well I have heard that B & Q were doing a cheap line of PVC Incinerators for only £4.99. Customer 1: Now you're talking...why couldn't you have told me that when I first asked instead of arguing? (Dashes out of shop) Customers 2,3,4 et al... fall about, laughing incontinently.
Alright, this happened a few months ago and is still a situation that I'm trying to figure out. Scene: The quintessential little old lady stopped me and asked me for help. Just looking at her I could tell that somewhere there are several grandkids that this woman spoils immensely. She was the sterotype old lady in a good way Granny: Excuse me young man, could you help me? I need a map of Minnesota that shows the roads and where they go Nester: No problem. All of our maps are right here. Granny: *Unfolding map and staring at it for several seconds* This shows the roads, but not where they go. Nester: *confused, but trying to be helpful* Do you mean where it goes to another state? Granny: No, just where it goes. Nester: What? Granny: I just want to see where the road goes. Nester: So...do you want to see the other roads that connect to these like the county roads and that sort of thing? Granny: No, just where the roads go. Nester: See, this road right here goes east and west. It goes through South Dakota and Wisconsin...do you want to see where it goes then? Granny: No. I see the road, but not where it goes. Nester:...I...I'm not sure how to help you, Ma'am. Granny: Oh that's okay. You've been a dear. I'll figure something out. I'm convinced that there is some hidden Zen meaning behind "the roads and where they go" and that one day I will figure it out. That very moment I'm sure I will begin to glow and the universe will come into focus and I will be at one with everything.
I'm guessing she meant that she would like the roads to have little labels saying "Thingy - Dooda", Thingy and Dooda being of course the names of the places at each end of the road... Or even better, the road leading out of Littletown should be labelled not "to Nexttown" but "to Bigcitywheremygrandkidsalllive" or something like that... Edited for bette(r) spelling
He he, Nester, I think Zen is a lot easier than that. This seems to be a condition every granny develops over the years. I hate going out in the car when Judi's mother is in the back for the same reason. For example..."Where are we?" "About 10 miles outside of (insert destination)" "Yes... but where are we, exactly?" I did think of installing GPS but that's only good to the nearest 10m. Hmm, irony
This isn't exactly funny - more like pitiful. Scene: I'm looking at some photos on my computer screen at work. Chap next to me asks: What's that? Me: Photos a woman took while driving through current day Chernobyl Chap: Chernobyl? Where's that? Duh.
This wasn't a conversation, but more talking aloud to one's self. Yesterday, in Ikea, a puzzled-looking lady with a trolley : "I'm lost. I am Sooooooo lost." I was torn between wanting to help her and the urge to burst out laughing. I'm rather ashamed to admit I chose the easy way out
I work at the local Wal-Mart, so I get these sorts of things all the time. One of my favorite was during the Christmas season. Customer: Do you guys giftwrap? Me: (trying to keep a straight face) No, ma'am, that's not something we offer. Customer: Oh, alright then. Ten minutes later, laughing in the backroom: Me: I just had a customer ask if we giftwrapped! Fellow employee: Oh, that's funny! What does she think we are, some high-end store like Sears? :roll:
Grace was rather frightened by walmart when i took her there. I don't blame her in the least. But it was an important part of showing her why america is evil.
Walmart tried to establish in Germany. They scared all the people away and gave it up last year. It was just too much service for the German customer to bear.
I don't have customers just students... I have a particularly demanding one at the moment where the conversations go something like... Him: SO when's the assignment due? Me: Friday Him: I don't have a group Me: Thats OK its group optional you can do it by yourself Him: But its due Friday. Me: Yes, its due Friday Him: Can you find me a group? Me: No, thats your responsibility Him: But its due Friday Me: Yes its due Friday Him: Can I do only part of the assignment Me: No, you need to do it all Him: But its due Friday Me: Yes, but this is your responsibility Him: So what do I have to do Me: Its in the Course Outline Him: Can't you just tell me Me: I've already told everybody Him: I didn't come to that lecture Me: Well thats your responsibility Him: Can't you just tell me what to do? Me: No, its in the Course Outline Him: So when is it due? And around we go. I just love students like this they just make me feel like my job is fulfilling and worthwhile :roll:
Wal-mart is about to open a middle sized Supercenter in my town of just over 2000 people, I am sort of scared for the downtown stores, but maybe they are different enough from Wal-mart to survive. Wal-mart has just about saturated this country so look out world, they feel they have to keep expanding to survive so I expect them to keep on trying even in Germany.
Don't worry Germany apparently Walmart's next frontier to infest is China. That should keep them busy for a while...
I set up a display today with a book called The Wal Mart effect. One of the statistics was something like "each minute Wal Mart makes 36 million dollars" I can't remember what number exactly it was, but it was crazy. Tamyra, about a hundred miles south of here they opened a supercenter after a few years of protests, lawsuits, etc and the whole town has grown since, not a single downtown local store has closed. Actually their business has increased. It's not always bad. Wal Mart is inferior to Fleet Farm (aka- The Man's Mall) though. I'm not sure how far spread they are around the country, but I love the store. Just a giant warehouse full of everything you need and it all smells like horse feed. Mmmm molasses.
Is yours a Mills Fleet Farm? We have an L and M Fleet Supply in town, They sell baby chicks and ducks in the springtime. So far I have resisted. It is one of my favorite stores, I bought my last winter coat there and the Thomas the Tank Engine toys for Connor. The nearest Mills Fleet Farm is in Brainerd but they send flyers every week and catalogs a couple of times a year.
What got me about Walmart was the way you'd walk past dog food and in the next aisle you'd find car tyres, then you'd go past nappies (or diapers, I suppose, since this was the US) into guns, followed by commercial size bags of popcorn. It was surreal.
I think most UK supermarkets are now trying to follow Walmart's lead in the amount and variety of stock they carry, except the handguns of course. We have a great store in Durham, one of several across the country, that is part of the German based Lidl group (maybe Hsing can enlighten us). Its about a quarter of the size of the nearby Sainsburys but seems to stock twice as much, at half the cost. It's a great shopping experience.
We have a Lidl in Hastings, and 'great shopping experience' is exactly how I wouldn't describe it. Either yours is very different to ours, Joculator, or the doctor's prescribing you something interesting!
http://www.jibjab.com/jokebox/jokebox/jibjab/id/42819/jokeid/30964 Brad discovered it first, and now whenever we go to a WalMart-type store (Target, usually, since it's closer and a few notches classier), he breaks into the "BigBoxMart" song. And yes, we still go Nocomply, your GPS idea made me guffaw. It sounded like something Eloise might say, a la "I carry a mirror with me at all times, so I can check my reflection. Most of the time, I look like me - Eloise"
Now now Joculator, I'm pretty sure that some Walmarts only sell Rifles and shotguns, not handguns. ;-)
There are plenty here, and I'm with Grace on this one. Unless there's some meaning of "great" that I don't know of...
Welllll, not exactly, but he's managing to keep me alive Besides, Sainsburys don't stock woad, flint axes or animal skins You know... the simple 'basics' of life.
