Then there are the savvy shoppers who can determine their costs all too well. I can’t count how many times customers have come up to the counter with a small stack of vinyl delights and requested, or even demanded, a reduced price. I’m sorry, but selecting five records with the whopping total of $27 doesn’t quite qualify you for a quantity discount. One gangly, unwashed, twenty-something twit who had apparently seen more bong hits than work hours in his life, strolled around the store for about forty minutes, putting his grubby hands all over my records before bringing a short stack of LPs to the counter. He kinda tossed the records next to the register and looked down his oily snout at me.

"Five bucks."

Rather than requesting that he only address me in complete, somewhat intelligent sentences, I simply looked at the album’s easy-to-read price tags. One Frank Zappa Fillmore East - June 1971 priced at four dollars, one "as-is" beater for a buck, and five bargain-bin records which came to another whole dollar. Six bucks. Suppressing all emotion and letting my eyes glaze over, I flatly responded, "Six bucks."

After a thick pause, the cretin spoke, saying he’d have to think about it. Think about it all you want, and you’ll be lucky if you figure it out prior to my kicking your pimply ass out of the store.

Of course, some things are better left unsaid.

The insolent idiot returned to the counter without the dollar record he had previously selected (undoubtedly misfiling it) and I rang up his hefty five dollar purchase.

Then he proceeded to do what is by leaps and bounds the stupidest thing I have ever seen in my years inside record stores: He held up the Fillmore record and pointed at it indignantly. "What’s up with this?" he barked, sounding not nearly as intelligent as Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

"What’s up with what?" I replied, baffled. As it turns out, he was referring to the album jacket, a white design with all the credits printed as scribbly pencil writing.

"With this," continued the derelict, pointing at the jacket with increasing annoyance, "What, did you guys lose the cover and write in all this stuff?"

* * * * * * * *

So you see, record store employees don’t think they’re superior people, they’ve just learned that the bulk of the people across the counter are inferior.

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All Illustrations from www.corbis.com
Photomodified by Oates

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