Am I blogging...or am I pitching my existence?
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| High Concept Am I blogging...or am I pitching my existence? |
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Friday, April 04, 2003 The Pitch: It's like Clerks meets Conspiracy Theory! I figure all retail people got it bad. I'm sure I'm not the only one. But working in a comic book store does have its advantages when it comes to the weirdos.To wit: I was standing there behind the counter, shooting the shit with brian when all of a sudden this guy walks in, looks at the Promethea two pack action figure set we've got behind the counter and says, "Oh, how great a Cleopatra action figure." And I'm not paying any attention so I go, "Yeah." Here's my big mistake: a second later, it sinks in what he's said, and what I've agreed with, and I don't keep my mouth shut. Instead, I go: "Actually, It just looks like Cleopatra. It's actually a comic book character called Promethea." And the guy says, "Well, I'd sure like to see her x-rated." And I swear to god, my mouth just flopped open. I want to correct his english, and yet I know this is a "don't feed the freak" moment ("DFTF, dude," is how Brian puts it. "DFTF...") where a crazy person will inflict themselves on you because you have nowhere to go. And yet my mouth is hanging open, just flopping there, and I should really say something. So I just say, "Yeah, well, I don't know about that." My only hope now that I've said something is to get out of there quick, but before I can make an excuse (usually I tell Brian I'm going to the restroom and hide for five minutes), Brian says, "Jeff, I'm running to the back." He sees the look of death i give him, and it makes him all the happier. (Later, he tells me he goes to the back and laughs until he cries over the whole interaction). So I'm stuck with crazy guy, who then says, "Who's this Grendel guy?" And this is part of the comic retailing experience that sucks. Unlike records or pants or salt-shakers, when someone crazy asks you something that sounds crazy ("What are these pants for?"), your answer never sounds crazier than the question ("You wear them.") But when a crazy guy asks you, "who's this Grendel guy?" you are screwed because to actually answer the question you have to say something like, "well, he's the undying incarnation of evil, but that refrigerator magnet there represents the Hunter Rose Grendel, who is a professional assassin and was the first version of the character." So my mouth flopped about for a minute or two and I said, "Oh, he's cool." And the crazy guy (who looked like an unassuming well-dressed middle-aged Asian man) said, "Does he like to party?" This is when I tried to force my astral body to leave my corporeal form so it could travel back into the back room and kill Brian. It didn't work. "You could say that," I said. Fortunately, he got tired of chit-chat and wanted to look at the comic book porn so I showed him where it was and left him alone, and we were both happy. Ten minutes after he left, Brian came back and proceeded to laugh at me for the next hour and a half. On the upside, Volume Three of James Kolchaka's Sketchbook Diaries came out, so it could've been worse. posted by Jeff Lester | 8:03 PM | |
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