Major CraziesstufsockerDecember 3 2004, 17:07:25 UTC
A large portion of cafe customers are there every single day. They are all uniquely special little snowflakes.
Fingers: He's quiet. He only wears khaki-colored clothing, unless it's wintertime, in which case he wears a long black trench coat. He dyes the top of his hair fairly often, the color always different, all over the dark blond to black spectrum, but only the top, sp the back of his head has stripes. He likes to touch the magazines. A LOT. He can be found either in a random distant corner or in the mens' room with them. The stack is usually a minimum of twelve inches thick.
Old Yeller: She's a diabetic pensioner who works at a grocery store part-time to keep herself active and loves going to Burger King across the street every two hours or so since she needs to keep eating due to being diabetic. She likes to buy books for herself and have them *neatly* gift wrapped, and then returns them a couple of days later. She has done this with the thick paperback of Lord of the Rings at least 3 times. She also likes talking about all of these things and much more at length with the cafe staff from ALL THE WAY across the room.
Mystery Man: He comes in, and somehow manages to drink a GIGANTIC bottle of cheap wine while in the store. He leaves having never bought anything, and we find the enormous bottle somewhere in the childrens' area, psychology (self help, psych, sex and erotica) and photography. No one has ever caught him in the act.
The Twins: These guys actually are twin dentists who come in an hour or two before closing and head straight for erotica. One stands on the floor and the other stands next to him on a step-stool. They read to each other until they leave. When the store hours changed to close an hour earlier monday through thursday, they threated the staff, saying that there was no way we were supposed to close early, and that they wer going to call the manager in the morning and give him our names and demand we be fired.
Mrs. Y____: We use her real name. She's been in the cafe every evening from around 3:30 or so until closing for the last 12 years writing her book, which will never be published because it's written out on a long scroll of taped-together legal pad paper (the yellow kind) and written out in paragraphs arranged in a checkerboard pattern. If someone's in 'her' table, she stands by and glares until they get uncomfortable and leave. She has been caught on multiple occasions with magazines sticking out the back of her pants, slipping greeting cards in to her notebooks, putting books into her notebook bag, and trying to exit the store. The manager got her banned from the store once, but apparently she complained to the police about being mistreated by the store to the extent that they walked her back and told the manager to keep an eye on her, but let her in because she was making them nuts. The town mayor turns and walks the other way when he sees her coming toward him at the yearly meet and greet, and yells out, "Carol! Stop it! There's nothing we're going to do about it! Leave me alone."
Minor CraziesstufsockerDecember 3 2004, 17:07:51 UTC
(I call her)Elvira: She's obsessed with one of the older male employees. If given the opportunity she will ask a salesperson for help in finding literally dozens of books. An hour or two later, the books are all found scattered randomly throughout the store.
Travel agent: She takes out entire countries from the Travel section (doubles, triples included) and leaves them stacked in the cafe.
The icky creepy guy: Likes looking at pictures of nude children in photography. Enjoys staring at the cashier from his regular place in the erotica section. Enjoys jumping out at female employees from behind the stacks.
Jay (aka Puppet Man) and Silent Bob, and the French Pirate: An ok group of guys, they just hang out a lot, have a certain look about them, flirt with the girlies and are caffeine freaks. Puppet man carries a suitcase of marionette (sp?) parts, which I believe he makes himself.
The Returner #1: Buys a graphic novel, returns it a week later and buys another, returns it a week later. Repeat.
The Returner #2: Buys a book with a corporate discount. Comes back a while later to return it, but he's 'lost' the receipt, never mentions having bought it with the corporate discount. Repeat. This one took a while to catch because there are always different people working different shifts, and in order to see him do this more than once took a period of a couple of months, but once it was mentioned, everyone had seen him do it at once or twice. Time was his friend.
Jogger: He comes in wearing spandex, picks up a large stack of magazines he's asked some poor unknowing person to hold, reads them all in the cafe, usually dripping coffee on a few. After being told once that magazines and books were held by the register so they can be quickly rung up, he replied "i'm not going to BUY them. I'm just reading them."
The Sampler: comes to the cafe, usually stares at the menu and then asks for a "taste" of mocha freeze. If the shot cup isn't full, he'll mention that the cafe server can "go ahead and fill it up," and then he leaves without buying anything. This used to happen every day until we ditched the freeze machine. He also likes to treat booksellers like dirt.
The IT guys: A category of customer fitting a certain racial profile who buy computer books and return them with the receipt one day short of a month later, cds unopened. This happens every single day. Repeat offenders.
Fingers: He's quiet. He only wears khaki-colored clothing, unless it's wintertime, in which case he wears a long black trench coat. He dyes the top of his hair fairly often, the color always different, all over the dark blond to black spectrum, but only the top, sp the back of his head has stripes. He likes to touch the magazines. A LOT. He can be found either in a random distant corner or in the mens' room with them. The stack is usually a minimum of twelve inches thick.
Old Yeller: She's a diabetic pensioner who works at a grocery store part-time to keep herself active and loves going to Burger King across the street every two hours or so since she needs to keep eating due to being diabetic. She likes to buy books for herself and have them *neatly* gift wrapped, and then returns them a couple of days later. She has done this with the thick paperback of Lord of the Rings at least 3 times. She also likes talking about all of these things and much more at length with the cafe staff from ALL THE WAY across the room.
Mystery Man: He comes in, and somehow manages to drink a GIGANTIC bottle of cheap wine while in the store. He leaves having never bought anything, and we find the enormous bottle somewhere in the childrens' area, psychology (self help, psych, sex and erotica) and photography. No one has ever caught him in the act.
The Twins: These guys actually are twin dentists who come in an hour or two before closing and head straight for erotica. One stands on the floor and the other stands next to him on a step-stool. They read to each other until they leave. When the store hours changed to close an hour earlier monday through thursday, they threated the staff, saying that there was no way we were supposed to close early, and that they wer going to call the manager in the morning and give him our names and demand we be fired.
Mrs. Y____: We use her real name. She's been in the cafe every evening from around 3:30 or so until closing for the last 12 years writing her book, which will never be published because it's written out on a long scroll of taped-together legal pad paper (the yellow kind) and written out in paragraphs arranged in a checkerboard pattern. If someone's in 'her' table, she stands by and glares until they get uncomfortable and leave. She has been caught on multiple occasions with magazines sticking out the back of her pants, slipping greeting cards in to her notebooks, putting books into her notebook bag, and trying to exit the store. The manager got her banned from the store once, but apparently she complained to the police about being mistreated by the store to the extent that they walked her back and told the manager to keep an eye on her, but let her in because she was making them nuts. The town mayor turns and walks the other way when he sees her coming toward him at the yearly meet and greet, and yells out, "Carol! Stop it! There's nothing we're going to do about it! Leave me alone."
Reply
Travel agent: She takes out entire countries from the Travel section (doubles, triples included) and leaves them stacked in the cafe.
The icky creepy guy: Likes looking at pictures of nude children in photography. Enjoys staring at the cashier from his regular place in the erotica section. Enjoys jumping out at female employees from behind the stacks.
Jay (aka Puppet Man) and Silent Bob, and the French Pirate: An ok group of guys, they just hang out a lot, have a certain look about them, flirt with the girlies and are caffeine freaks. Puppet man carries a suitcase of marionette (sp?) parts, which I believe he makes himself.
The Returner #1: Buys a graphic novel, returns it a week later and buys another, returns it a week later. Repeat.
The Returner #2: Buys a book with a corporate discount. Comes back a while later to return it, but he's 'lost' the receipt, never mentions having bought it with the corporate discount. Repeat. This one took a while to catch because there are always different people working different shifts, and in order to see him do this more than once took a period of a couple of months, but once it was mentioned, everyone had seen him do it at once or twice. Time was his friend.
Jogger: He comes in wearing spandex, picks up a large stack of magazines he's asked some poor unknowing person to hold, reads them all in the cafe, usually dripping coffee on a few. After being told once that magazines and books were held by the register so they can be quickly rung up, he replied "i'm not going to BUY them. I'm just reading them."
The Sampler: comes to the cafe, usually stares at the menu and then asks for a "taste" of mocha freeze. If the shot cup isn't full, he'll mention that the cafe server can "go ahead and fill it up," and then he leaves without buying anything. This used to happen every day until we ditched the freeze machine. He also likes to treat booksellers like dirt.
The IT guys: A category of customer fitting a certain racial profile who buy computer books and return them with the receipt one day short of a month later, cds unopened. This happens every single day. Repeat offenders.
You know these people, and more, I'm certain.
Reply
Leave a comment