The Wrong Treats
I'm not sure where I'm going, but on the way there I find a small record store in a stand-alone one-story brick building. From the street sidewalk there's the sidewalk leading up to the store, bisecting a small, but very nice green front yard. A few steps up and handrail on the left, a short walk to the front door, the grass nicely cut and lines manicured. The front door is smooth and opens silently except for the bell connected to the top, alerting employees (alerting pretty much anyone in the store, really) to newcomers, and, of course, the departing.
The store is well arranged and is just a bit long of being a perfect square dimensionally. Plenty of stock as well as plenty of room for people to browse. To the left are a few cabinet structures but not organized like the rest of the store, also there is unexpected empty space. I immediately think two things: one, I've been here before (why didn't it seem familiar when I was passing it outside?) and two, the store had a band playing here recently. I swear if I stuck my nose in a newspaper more often I'd make it to more social happenings and would actually manage to make friends outside of work. I was, though, briefly proud of myself for my detective / deductive reasoning skills. I guess really it comes from years of working in small-spaced independently owned record stores. I got over myself and started looking around, making a slow clockwise circuit through the store. The store seems specifically designed to lead you in a clockwise direction immediately upon entering, though there is plenty of space to go in either direction. I pass by two doors that access back offices or other spaces. Behind one of them I hear people discussing things. There are a few people in the store but I don't notice any music playing. Sometimes after a show it's nice to have a bit of silence. I wonder who played?
All the bins are hand-made and there is nary a form of digital media; not much here but vinyl. Lots of vinyl. Though, I must say I don't notice a front counter / register deal, but that could be all a part of the disorganized space & structures nearer the door. I'm kind of drifting, not really focused. I am trying a little harder than I should to discern what the voices behind the door are discussing.
Almost completing a full clockwise cycle I remember an album I want to find and I begin flipping through the appropriate section. Thinking now, for the life of me I can't remember what letter. And then, at the store, as I was looking, I'd flip a few albums and completely forget what I was looking for. I stop, try to remember, which I do after a few seconds, and begin flipping again, annoyed by the brief memory dropout.
And then I forget again. Paus, look at a few of the other people browsing. A guy with short blonde hair and a light brown corduroy coat with a faux fur collar and his girlfriend with long, dark hair in a dark long coat. I see this couple everywhere. This couple populates the earth. They are good for surveys and statistics. They are the couple polls are made for and from. The ones you hear about on the news when the media feels it needs to get the pulse of the community and wants us to know how the rest of us are thinking and feeling. This couple has no face. Well, ok, that's because they have their backs to me and I'm just being cranky because I keep forgetting the simple name of a band.
I remember the name, thankfully and move to the row to the right and start flipping through the albums. The door to one of the rooms opens and two women emerge. Once through the doorway they divide. I turn back to records and notice between the rows of records there are paper cupcake cups, some with half-eaten cupcakes still in them, crumbs and crumpled paper all over. This annoys me to no end. You open your place of business to the public and provide them not only with free entertainment but also free foods and they repay you by not even discarding of it properly and, worse, vandalizing your stock with their carelessness and apathy. I notice at my feet there are two empty cardboad boxes, one small (perhaps for cds, which I still don't see anywhere in the store) and one larger. I decide to clean up the mess that is here, partially because that's what I do - see a problem and try to fix it, and partially because these half-eaten cupcakes and trash are in my way in my attempt to find an album.
Just as I am bending to put my first handfull of cupcake entrails in one of the boxes, one of the women arrives near me. She's shorter than I, though probably easily average height, a nice and slender frame but with a head of hair that has got to be seen to be believed. It comes close to occupying a third of her physical space and in the back is all the way down to her waist. A light brown with a lot of grey streaks. her bangs cover half her face so I can see her nose, cheeks, lips & chin, but no clue what her eyes are like. She seems not so much oblivious to my cleaning up as she is just very much into following her own agenda. I guess to her me cleaning up is the most natural thing in the world. She doesn't even greet me or look at me, but she stays nearby. That being so, I return to my self-appointed mini-chore. I g to grab a second handfull of cupcakes and paper trash, this one more substantial than the first, the cupcakes are less eaten, dark chocolate with white icing. They smell incredible. So much so I'm briefly tempted to taste them, despite them having been already partly devoured. Into the cardboard box. I turn to grab more and somehow, in the small space that exists between the rows of records there is actually more cupcakes and trash than there was after my second handful. I begin pulling out full, uneaten cupcakes. This isn't right, but I don't know what to do about it. I turn to the woman with the hair to say something. Someone is by the front door and hits a light switch. The woman with the hair erupts in her first display of emotion and it's yelling. "Don't turn that off!" She urgently moves to the door and flicks the light switch in the opposite direction. As far as I can tell no change had occurred within the store, so I guess it's the outside front door light (which I hadn't noticed being on when I was coming in, though it was daylight then. I look out the window and notice how incredibly, scarily dark it is, just before she closes the Venetian blinds.
I turn back to the task at hand, confused and becoming increasingly worried. Why is it so dark outside now that it is almost like nothing else exists? How the hell (or, perhaps I shouldn't use that word...) does the cupcake trash keep expanding the more I pull from a very narrow space between rows of records? A space not large enough to fit an entire cupcake, but now each time I look in, reach in there is more and more of the cupcakes and discarded papers and each time the cupcakes are more formed / less eaten than the previous time.
And I cannot see anyone's face. Why won't anyone look at me directly?
The store is well arranged and is just a bit long of being a perfect square dimensionally. Plenty of stock as well as plenty of room for people to browse. To the left are a few cabinet structures but not organized like the rest of the store, also there is unexpected empty space. I immediately think two things: one, I've been here before (why didn't it seem familiar when I was passing it outside?) and two, the store had a band playing here recently. I swear if I stuck my nose in a newspaper more often I'd make it to more social happenings and would actually manage to make friends outside of work. I was, though, briefly proud of myself for my detective / deductive reasoning skills. I guess really it comes from years of working in small-spaced independently owned record stores. I got over myself and started looking around, making a slow clockwise circuit through the store. The store seems specifically designed to lead you in a clockwise direction immediately upon entering, though there is plenty of space to go in either direction. I pass by two doors that access back offices or other spaces. Behind one of them I hear people discussing things. There are a few people in the store but I don't notice any music playing. Sometimes after a show it's nice to have a bit of silence. I wonder who played?
All the bins are hand-made and there is nary a form of digital media; not much here but vinyl. Lots of vinyl. Though, I must say I don't notice a front counter / register deal, but that could be all a part of the disorganized space & structures nearer the door. I'm kind of drifting, not really focused. I am trying a little harder than I should to discern what the voices behind the door are discussing.
Almost completing a full clockwise cycle I remember an album I want to find and I begin flipping through the appropriate section. Thinking now, for the life of me I can't remember what letter. And then, at the store, as I was looking, I'd flip a few albums and completely forget what I was looking for. I stop, try to remember, which I do after a few seconds, and begin flipping again, annoyed by the brief memory dropout.
And then I forget again. Paus, look at a few of the other people browsing. A guy with short blonde hair and a light brown corduroy coat with a faux fur collar and his girlfriend with long, dark hair in a dark long coat. I see this couple everywhere. This couple populates the earth. They are good for surveys and statistics. They are the couple polls are made for and from. The ones you hear about on the news when the media feels it needs to get the pulse of the community and wants us to know how the rest of us are thinking and feeling. This couple has no face. Well, ok, that's because they have their backs to me and I'm just being cranky because I keep forgetting the simple name of a band.
I remember the name, thankfully and move to the row to the right and start flipping through the albums. The door to one of the rooms opens and two women emerge. Once through the doorway they divide. I turn back to records and notice between the rows of records there are paper cupcake cups, some with half-eaten cupcakes still in them, crumbs and crumpled paper all over. This annoys me to no end. You open your place of business to the public and provide them not only with free entertainment but also free foods and they repay you by not even discarding of it properly and, worse, vandalizing your stock with their carelessness and apathy. I notice at my feet there are two empty cardboad boxes, one small (perhaps for cds, which I still don't see anywhere in the store) and one larger. I decide to clean up the mess that is here, partially because that's what I do - see a problem and try to fix it, and partially because these half-eaten cupcakes and trash are in my way in my attempt to find an album.
Just as I am bending to put my first handfull of cupcake entrails in one of the boxes, one of the women arrives near me. She's shorter than I, though probably easily average height, a nice and slender frame but with a head of hair that has got to be seen to be believed. It comes close to occupying a third of her physical space and in the back is all the way down to her waist. A light brown with a lot of grey streaks. her bangs cover half her face so I can see her nose, cheeks, lips & chin, but no clue what her eyes are like. She seems not so much oblivious to my cleaning up as she is just very much into following her own agenda. I guess to her me cleaning up is the most natural thing in the world. She doesn't even greet me or look at me, but she stays nearby. That being so, I return to my self-appointed mini-chore. I g to grab a second handfull of cupcakes and paper trash, this one more substantial than the first, the cupcakes are less eaten, dark chocolate with white icing. They smell incredible. So much so I'm briefly tempted to taste them, despite them having been already partly devoured. Into the cardboard box. I turn to grab more and somehow, in the small space that exists between the rows of records there is actually more cupcakes and trash than there was after my second handful. I begin pulling out full, uneaten cupcakes. This isn't right, but I don't know what to do about it. I turn to the woman with the hair to say something. Someone is by the front door and hits a light switch. The woman with the hair erupts in her first display of emotion and it's yelling. "Don't turn that off!" She urgently moves to the door and flicks the light switch in the opposite direction. As far as I can tell no change had occurred within the store, so I guess it's the outside front door light (which I hadn't noticed being on when I was coming in, though it was daylight then. I look out the window and notice how incredibly, scarily dark it is, just before she closes the Venetian blinds.
I turn back to the task at hand, confused and becoming increasingly worried. Why is it so dark outside now that it is almost like nothing else exists? How the hell (or, perhaps I shouldn't use that word...) does the cupcake trash keep expanding the more I pull from a very narrow space between rows of records? A space not large enough to fit an entire cupcake, but now each time I look in, reach in there is more and more of the cupcakes and discarded papers and each time the cupcakes are more formed / less eaten than the previous time.
And I cannot see anyone's face. Why won't anyone look at me directly?