Arts & crafts

Tonight, my co-worker tried to make an airplane out of styrofoam!

Two words: EPIC FAIL

Update:
It looked like a duck with it's head on backwards.

Nashville Lady & The best drunken Newfie of 2008

I'm sorry I haven't laid on a good dysfunctional persons story since last May. Many exciting things have happened, and you will hear about them soon, even now.
Because of all of your love, I've decided to include an extra "pre-The best drunken Newfie of 2008" post here & now!
AND very soon I'll be posting the "Angry homeless black man who wanted to kick my ass in to next week cause I wouldn't turn his nickels, pennies, & dimes in to a $10 bill" story! It's a sure classic.

Halloween 2008 - We have a new staff member working this evening; we'll call him Rizzo.
A fairly regular lady enters the store with her half-way-house boyfriend. The lady is, quite clearly in one glance, a heavy duty country music fan. She's wearing the full Nashville garb, including hat & boots, and has the distinct smell of urine, almost visible it's so bad.
Rizzo seems amused by her Halloween outfit, unsurprising since there have been a few costumes in the store in the past couple of hours.
I didn't immediately notice the lady as I was too busy watching a drunken Newfie passing out outside, but once the smell of urine hit me I knew it was time to inform Rizzo of this country music abomination.
"Rizzo, I have something to tell you about that Nashville cowgirl costume" and Rizzo replies "lay it on me bro".
"That is not a costume" and in disbelief Rizzo says "you're full of shit" and I say "no, smell that? Yeah mofo, that's the smell of cowgirl piss... the real deal... just like in the U.S. of A... real piss!"
And the lady approaches the counter to purchase some bargain bin Reba McEntyre and Clay Walker CD's.
The reality of this hits Rizzo like a bag of frozen Garth Brooks shit, but he handled it like a true professional.
Rizzo gets a raise.

So you're probably wondering about the drunken Newfie.
So here it is. There was about 15 normal customers in the store, and I was talking to one when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a person entering the store with great difficulty.
He managed to get inside, but immediately leaned against the door frame, blocking all from entering or exiting the store. A total fire hazard.
I excused myself from my customer, who quickly acknowledged, and I approached the man leaning on the door.
"Caaan... I help you?" I asked, probably with a notable expression on my face. Then the smell of, perhaps schnapps, hit me... very strong too.
Imagine the horror of the smell of schnapps + cowgirl piss... you couldn't pay me enough.
"IIIII...mmm leeikkkin faar shhum moshhac" he yelled at me.
"I can't understand a word you're saying"
"Jeerst cis Ive gat E fukin noofyy... fuck you" WOW! And he continued "yeeeuo wan biddnisshh"
"Well, maybe you should leave now" I suggested, and all the customers looked amused.
"IIIII...mmm leeikkkin faar shhum moshhac" he yelled again.
Then a girl exited the store surprisingly successfully, slipping behind the drunk Newfie without him even noticing.
"Yeah, you should probably go back to Newfoundland now, sir"
"gaarb... fuckiiiinnnn guuuyyy... fuck you!"
And then he stumbled back outside, about 6 feet to a garbage out front the mobile phone store, and passed out for about a half hour.
A while later I decided to check on him.
Gone?
So I walked down the way a bit... to the dollar store, and there he was, talking to the dollar store manager... lots of yelling going on, so I watched for a minute until he finally came stumbling out, gripping the wall to stay standing.
I figured the police would come by at any moment, but not so much. He entered the very next door he could find... the pizza shop. Well. maybe they could sober him up with some water and a slice of pizza. Or, maybe he got thrown in the drunk tank. I'll never know.
Thanks Newfoundland... your drunks are the bestest!

Introducing The Crack-Sisters!

You'll surely love this one.
A pair of thirty-something female retards enter the store. Possibly crackheads, maybe prostitutes, who knows, who cares.
One is extremely pregnant, mentioning to her (evidently) sister how she may need to go the the hospital soon. Meanwhile I hope & hope that her water don't break all over the store, causing people to slip & fall on her birthing juice, thus suing me out of a job.
They have a cab waiting outside, and are depending on me for money outright. So they plop a small pile of DVDs on the counter and ask me for immediate money for the cab.
"NO" I say.
And they proceed to grumble at my lack of care for there stupid situation while I resist suggesting birth control.
After a good lookthrough, I tell them I can give them $17 for the DVDs. They're cool with it, but I then ask them for the legally required photo I.D. It's a no go!
There is a shy young lady nearby, who it turns out was extremely and equally nice & naive. They ask her if she can sign for the DVDs, but I cut it and say "NO".
The quiet girl, barely audibly, says "But if you need some money... then..." but was cut off because the sisters we're too frustrated by my assholism and their talking much too loudly.
So they grumble some more about this travesty brought on by me!
The non-pregnant sister had left and returned at this point saying the the cab driver is a very impatient asshole.
The preganant sister now leaves for a moment and returns with the owner of a next door beauty salon.
"She'll sign for it" while the owner looks at me perplexed.
"What am I signing for?" she asks while holding her driver's licence.
"Basically, if these are stolen and the cops come knocking on your door, then it's on your ass, not theirs."
"Oh" she says, as the pregnant one promptly tells her that she had broken up with her boyfriend (the father) just this morning, and they're certainly not stolen. (depending on how you look at the situation I guess)
It's also at this point that it becomes apparent that the manager had actually paid the cab driver!
She hands over the I.D. and I start entering it on the computer when the non-pregnant one starts piling at least 70 more DVDs (from a baby stroller minus one baby!) on to the counter.
Okay...
"So you want me to do all thses on top of the small pile?"
"Yes"
(fuck) "Okay"
But the salon manager is busy and has to leave, so, doing the neighbourly business a slight favour, I take her info and let her leave.
Suddenly, "can I use your phone?"
"NO"
"Please"
"NO, there's a payphone over by that grocery store"
"fine" (more grumbling)
After about a half hour I finish going through the damn DVDs and conclude that I can give them about $170 cash.
"Okay great, but first can I use the phone?"
"Still NO"
"Okay just the cash then"
I finalize the tranaction, count out the cash, and hand it to her. Done & done. They have NO idea just how nice I actually was to them, given the circumstances (apart from low-balling them on the DVD costs though). Baby jesus would be all thumbs up I swear, even if this lady's baby won't be able to eat heinz food bacause of my actual stiffing her.
But the pregnant one had to top it off with not only bitter chocolate, but stale caramel too.
"Can I use the phone?"
"NO"
"Okay, but can you give me a $20 for this?" (pause)
What she pulled out of her pocket now is absolutely a new one for me, at least since 1989.
She pulled out a stack of at least 20 ONE DOLLAR BILLS (Canadian... which went out in the late 80's)
"NO" I say "That's not currency... maybe the bank can change it, but don't keep your hopes up... goodbye" and she said not another word.
I promptly went outside for a cigarette, as this was a surprisingly stressful hour of my life (I do hope that that bit came across in this blog, but likely not).

The moral of the story is this:

• I am not here to randomly hand out cash.
• I am not your welfare office.
• I do not trust you or anyone who comes in here.
• It is not guaranteed that I can pay you for your CDs or DVDs.
• It is not guaranteed that my till has enough cash to pay for you CDs or DVDs.
• I don't actually like you.
• I don't give a shit if you're pregnant... that's YOUR problem.
• The best idea would be for you to give your baby up for adoption, that way it may have a chance at not being like you.
• You're lucky I even considered buying your crappy DVDs.
• Don't come back, especially if you have a baby.

end

Let's drop dad at the bus station

Chunky kid walks in to store.
Looks at some video games, gets excited, goes over to restaurant for breakfast.
Chunky kids comes back a half hour later, a bit chunkier, with mother.
After a few minutes, mother says "Let's go, we can come back when we don't have your dad with us."
Kid replies "ohh, can't we just drop dad off at the bus station!"

end transmission

These are the moments that make this job worth while :)

Silly humans

• I'm currently being inundated with stupids. These are people who dropped out of high school four years before they started high school.
• A bus pass does not count as "Government issued photo identification".
• "Black Cobra" the movie, is altogether completely different than Stallone's "Cobra".
• arghh

Everyone knows you suck

It should be noted that, if you lose a $5 bill, it's your fault. If somebody caused you to lose that $5, then surely you can acknowledge that persons ignorance, and have them apologize.
If you receive a credit voucher from a store, that voucher is redeemable only at the said store, like cash. And if you lose that voucher, there is nothing that can be done because there are thousands of vouchers in the store records, attainable only by number.
So, Mr. Illiterate Newfie man, I expect you to keep your word and never return to my store because you were unable to read the blatant, as opposed to fine print, words on your credit voucher of which you promptly lost.
Just because you previously frequented this store, does not make you any more special than anyone else that walks in here.
Also, you're very annoying, and the majority of the population of Ontario would prefer if you just shut the fuck up and return to Newfoundland, first thing tomorrow.
cheers.

UPDATE: He did return, with a stupid "I'm so smart" kind of grin. I don't think he bought anything though. Fucking Newfies.

Brief floppy disk conundrum

Sorry for the lack of information here lately. It's Canadian Winter Hibernation Time. Or, CWHT. And I work in a store that sells movies, so I stay inside where it's warm and watch movies, often while drinking beer, which rules!

A man walks in to the store, very friendly, looks at me as I acknowledge, and asks "Do you have floppy disks?"
I pause.
hmmm, I think to myself... floppy disks... disks spelled with a K instead of a C... those never got bigger than 1.4 megabytes unless I'm mistaking.... weird.
So I say to him "I don't think they make those any more" which seems like a good idea, especially since a year ago I bought a 2 gigabyte (that's like, 2500 floppy disks) USB memory stick for less than $40 and I still use it now with my ultra-modern computation machine.
When he left, I was sort of sad because I don't think he quite got the gist of the whole, that's totally obsolete, bit, and he looked like he was heading to the nearest Macintosh dealer to buy floppy disks! (FAIL... sorry dude, this is a music store)

Foothought:
OMG! If I had a stockpile of floppy disks (which I did several years ago) I could have made this guy pay like $1.00 per disk!! So evil I know, but I do admit that last week I literally sold a Commodore 64 for $15! For serious!

Winter-blah Wednesday

I always thought it was weird how, when Judas Priest or Iron Maiden CDs come in to this store, it's not just one or two, but an entire collection. Lately entire remastered collections with which if you put them all together, the spines form an image, usually of a mascot (Eddie) face, or an awesome heavy metal flame of death.

I would like to thank CBCs The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos for helping increase our sales of Michael Buble CDs. This happened after Michael told the exciting story of how he went to a party at Leonardo Dicaprios' house, got really drunk, puked in his pool & backyard, hopped the fence and stumbled home for two hours. Michael has allegedly not spoken to Leo since the said incident. (this actually happens to a lot of people, only not at Leonardo Dicaprios' house)

As you may be guessing, the winter blahs are riding my ass here at the store.
As I type, I watch my car being buried in wet & heavy snow. There has not been anyone in here in nearly an hour.
I'm thinking about playing our entire local-indie selection, which consists of at least 40 albums, and then planning my Sunday at the anonymous anti-Scientology protests.

If nothing else is posted here by 11:59pm Wednesday, then it only got excessively more boring around here.

General human dysfunction cont'd

So lets say you go to a grocery store for a can of Campbell's soup... the tomato kind.
Then you take the soup home, eat it, it's all good. End of story.
But no, it's not the end!
Instead, the following day you clip a coupon for 50 cents off Campbell's tomato soup, pull the soup receipt from the garbage, and trek back to the grocery store to say to the customer service clerk "I bought this soup yesterday and forgot the coupon. So please give me my 50 cents."
What do you think the response from the clerk is going to be? Do I even need to go on?
Anyhoo, this guy attempted exactly that today, but with a couple CDs. He lost! He did not get his five bucks because our $5 off coupons are point of sale only, same as anywhere else.
Please people, more common sense and less retardation.

Note to customers 2

IMPORTANT NOTICE TO ALL CUSTOMERS

Please do NOT attempt to sing along to ANYTHING during operating hours.
Doing this disturbs other customers & their screaming children, and often makes them forget to take their grandparents back to the home.
If you are an ex member of Oasis, you are exempt from this rule with proper photo I.D.

Thank you

This note was inspired by the very same person that caused the Christmas Beach Boys notice last month!

3 examples general human dysfunction

I hope all had a lovely holiday season, got wasted, gave/received gifts, sons defeated fathers with great triumph, and ohhh I could just smell the grievances airing across this fine city!

Recent studies, by me, have showed that people actually get "nice" during the holiday season, and then around January 2nd of any given year, they quickly turn in to cheap, money-saving, grumpy bastards!

Example #1:
A 180cm tall man walks in, business suit, trench coat, & briefcase. We'll call him The Little Executive.
He puts the briefcase down and pulls an Alecia Keys CD (As I Am) out of his pocket, with the receipt, purchased on December 28, 2007. The CD is unsealed, obviously well used, has a large crack in the jewel case, and had been purchased from our inventory of top 50 new(er) releases. Thus, this is not a used item.
Try this at any new record store; will HMV allow you to return an unsealed item purchased at their store? NO. And neither do we unless it is proven defective. It MUST be sealed for returns, and we are not Wal-Mart.
But it gets better. We recently had been distributing coupons for "Spend $20 & get $5 off your purchase" (before taxes 'n such). So The Little Executive decided he was entitled to return the garbage he purchased on December 28th, and can also include his past receipt towards this $5 off deal. NO, if you understand the simplest of coupon rules anywhere, then you understand that past receipts are only good for returns where applicable, and optionally for tax purposes for Revenue Canada (or IRS in the U.S.).
It's my understanding that all coupons in all retail businesses include simple rules due to these cheap wankers such as The Little Executive.
Needless to say, after a full ten minutes of The Little Executive bitching like a 12 year old boy, he decides to storm out of the store vowing to never return.
My co-worker & I were happy to wave goodbye.
But, not 5 minutes later, The Little Executive drives up to the store, walks back in, and says "You know what, you can HAVE this" he throws the Alicia Keys CD down, "and you can rip someone else off with it", and then storms out once again, never to return.
Another 4 minutes pass. OH SHIT, here he comes again!
The Little Executive walks back in & up to the counter. I'm preparing for round 3. But no, he picks up his briefcase. Damn! We never had a chance to piss in it!! The Little Executive Leaves, maybe never to return. Best wishes Little Executive.

Example #2:
A seemingly nice African man walks in and asks me if we have music DVDs. I say "yes" and point him to the music DVDs.
We'll have to call him Archbishop.
Archbishop says he's looking for hip-hop & dance DVDs. It's at this moment that I notice he's covered from head to toe in some truly awful cologne!
So he picks a DVD (Belly III) and goes to purchase it, with cash. Okay fine.
The price is 9.99, and comes to 11.29 after taxes.
"Why 11.29? Is supposed to be 9.99" and I reply "Taxes"
So he says "But I pay cash" and I reply "Yes, and tax is 13%" (as of January 1st in Canada)
So yes, maybe in Kenya there's no tax if you pay with cash? I don't know, don't really care, this is Canada, here & now, and if my store doesn't pay taxes, we get killed by Revenue Canada, thanks.
So he pays, leaves, and comes back 10 minutes later.
It seems Archbishop wanted audio, not video, and I won't blame him for being confused between DVDs & CDs, so I point him to the hip-hop/r&b/dance section.
Archbishop picks out some kind of R. Kelly (the pisser) CD, and exchanges it. But, R. Kelly is $2.25 more expensive than the previous item. He does not get it!
Looking confused, he walks out of the store, leaving everything on the counter. But, I'm fairly confident Archbishop will be back.
So a few minutes later he returns with $2. Okay, so he's short a quarter, I say nothing and I take the $2... thanks have a nice day, Archbishop.
I felt bad for the guy, cause he was actually really nice, but unfortunately really, really confused.
I couldn't really take any more.

...but I was destined to take some more.
Example #3
I tiny & lonely little man walks in, looks around for a while. We'll call him Misery.
Eventually Misery walks to the counter and asks me "do you have any Victorias Secret DVDs?" (hmmm) and I reply, upon doing a quick little search of our master DVD list, "No we don't carry those", to which he replies, "there's no nudity. I've seen them on TV" (what-the-hell-ever, you dick! We all know Victoria's Secret is not about nudity, but rather preemptive nudity, hence the astounding popularity of V.S. among men married to women who order their catalog annually), and so I say again, "no I assure you, Mr. Misery, we don't carry Victoria's Secret DVDs". END

Trip to the past - It's almost as good as the time a guy did the same thing, except whispered to me in the presence of his entire family "Do you have Girls Gone Wild?" to which I replied "NO WE DO NOT CARRY ADULT VIDEOS. THERE IS AN ADULT VIDEO STORE NOT TWO BLOCKS DOWN THE STREET FROM HERE, thank you." (just get yourself one of those internets; I swear by those).

Sticking to example #3, Misery finally picks out some crappy Eddie Murphy movies.
While I'm ringing these items through, he pulls out one of the above mentioned $20 coupons, very well, but then, oh no! He pulls out receipts from December! Here we go again.
What is wrong with these people?? We did this very same promotion last year at this time, and all without a single issue like this.
Needless to say, after a couple minutes of this guy bitching like a 12 year old boy, he puts everything down and storms out of the store, very, very pissed off, over, ahem, five dollars.
I must say, I myself am in a bit of a shitty financial situation right now, mostly due to the holiday season, but never ever could I make such fuss over five bucks and some cheap Eddie Murphy movies... unless I was highly emotionally buggered? Likely? Yeah.
The shitty part is that Misery never vowed to never return, which means I'll need a raise, but I'll take that up another time.

So here we are, 9 days in to 2008, and already people are de-evolving into cheapskate Eddie Murphy fans. Of course it's the little things like this that make me fear for our neighbors down in the U.S.A., all sitting there playing video games, not voting, being poor & fat, while the bible-belt pumps out the ballots for the next uber-christian right wing president. Yikes.
Curiously, there have not been any major video game related incidents yet this year. Good start, but watch here for whatever happens next; it's sure to be totally entertaining & awesome!