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Some really smart and nice people let their kids do some really stupid stuff inside stores, and are amazed by the idiotic things that happen to them.

Today was a great example.

I had this rather nice family come into my store.  Very pleasant people.  Mom was trying to get her two daughters supplied for dance class.  She was asking some very detailed and pointed questions with the clear intent to get her kids into the right product for them.  Kudos, Mom.  Dad was kind off in oblivion, with a Just-Get-This-Over-With stare and comments.  The two kids were overloaded with sugar.  It's just not fair to have that kind of energy around someone who is still half asleep...

Anyhow, this family was trying on shoes.  One daughter would try on the tap shoes, and the other would run around the store like she was at in the running for the Kentucky Derby, (and winning by 3 furlongs...).   Then they would trade off.  Dad was muttering for them to slow down and behave, but his heart clearly wasn't in it.

Now the problem is where they were before they came to my store.  The previous store sold them two light-up jump ropes.   All was good till Mom decided to let the girls play with them inside my store!

You see the problem with this?

Suddenly my quaint little shoe store became Gold's Gym for the superjuvenile set.   Displays are going flying, people complaining, girls slugging each other with lit up ropes like some sort of sick 80's fetish...   It just was not a pretty site.

And Mom is sitting in the aisle wondering why people are going apeshit!

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I have three employees that speak Farsi (a Persian language).  Farsi supposedly is one of the toughest languages to learn, but that isn't stopping my girls from trying to teach me.  So far, I have mastered one word ("Hello"), and I am slowly picking up a couple of others.  

I really think the girls are doing this to me so they can make fun of the way I talk.  It's giving them quite a laugh.

Now it's really a good thing for me to learn this, since my store has a high percentage of Persian speaking customers.   (I am also learning Spanish for the other dominant language in my area, with a bit more success!) 

Naturally, if I am involved, something is going to go horribly wrong, with some sort of hideous result.   Today, it happened.

I was working alone in the store when two Persian ladies came in.  One was about my age, and the other was born sometime about the time the dinosaurs got wiped out (I mean, she was a walking fossil, completely hunched over and barely moving!).   I said hello to them as they entered, as per our policy (and just trying to be nice... I know, I know... it's not me).   The younger lady said hello in unaccented English.  The biddy turned to me and with all her effort, barely squawks out "salam" (IE hello).  I turned to her and replied "salam".   Her eyes got HUGE (think dinner plates the size of Texas) and just kept craning her neck at me as she walked past.  

I think she wet herself.

It was all I could do to not laugh at her response.

The younger lady told me as she left that the biddy was shocked that anyone like me (IE straight white boy) would even try to speak her language.   She truly did not know how to react!

Who says old people aren't fun?

Going to Hell in a Dozen Handbags

I don't understand women.

Check that. NO men understand women.

Well, maybe Hugh Hefner, but that's a different story. (How the devil does that fossil have that many hot young women crawling around his bed? Wait... they're plastic, so it doesn't count.... But I digress.)

One young man at my store today started getting his education on women's OTHER side... And it ain't the sexy one.


An older lady and what was obviously her son came to the store today and were shopping around. They made their selections and placed them on my counter. As I started ringing the purchase, the mother went over and started checking out the handbags. That's when the fun began.

"You don't need another purse!" the young man said.

His mother's jaw hit the floor. I don't know if she was in shock that he would talk to her in public that way, or that he committed the sacrilege of telling a woman she doesn't need another handbag.

"What do you mean?" she replied.

"You already have 13 of 'em" he complained.

She grabbed the one she was looking at and put it with her purchase.

At this point, I had to get involved.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" I inquired.

"Sure."

"How old are you?" I asked, smiling and knowing he couldn't be more than half my age.

"17. Why?" he asked.

"You will learn!" I replied.

His mother started laughing.

"Learn what?"

"That women never have too many handbags or shoes. Trust me. Just accept this fact now and your life will be a lot easier, specially when you get serious with someone someday. Just accept the fact that the closet is for her, and it gets a LOT easier!"

His mother just grinned.

Pampers Ain't Kidding

I usually rant about unruly kids, but today I had an unruly parent.

The kid was an unholy terror (Damian, put the clerk down, boy). But I don't blame the kid.

I blame the parents.

Face it folks, you gotta pay attention to your brats, no matter what you think of them.

E5 and I had a kid that was about a year old. I say about as I am terrible guessing ages. All we know was that he was incapable of any speech other than a screech, and he was wearing nothing better than a t-shirt and exploding diapers.

The kid was running around the store yelling at the top of his puny little lungs, slamming into people, fixtures and benches (which had to hurt). He face-planted a few times after tripping over his own feet.

The monster tore all the products off of one fixture, destroying about $100 worth of merchandise, which I have to damage out (but really wanted to charge the parents for). As soon as we stopped the brat from terrorizing that fixture, he moved on to another. I stopped him there, and his mother FINALLY picked him up.

It was then that I decided these people were not capable of being parents.

Pampers ain't kidding when they say 10-20 pounds.

The diapers exploded.

E5 is was in the Marines. He can handle everything.

But not this.

He went in back and did the hundred meter cookie toss with the Porcelain Deity.

I thought about it.


What this made me think about was the age-old question. Why is it you need a license to drive, a license to get married, but ANYONE can shoot out a sprat from between their legs at will.


I feel really sorry for that boy growing up with that family.


And then there was the boy running around the store with a big grin on his face and his hands in his pants the whole time... but that's another story