Just a while ago, I found myself in Borders perusing the books and magazines. As I walked from rack to rack looking for another 800 pages or so of escapism, my ears were violently assaulted by the abhorrent wailing of a fellow with long hair who was belting out his rendition of "Do they know it's Christmas?"
Umm, dude, Christmas is over. To make matters worse, while his synthesizer played on, he kept on singing, sounding like a cat being tortured with a blowtorch. Then, as if that were not enough to make a thousand years of dead musicians turn in their graves, he cut the song off mid-sentence and just stopped.
Then he apologized and started begging people to buy his newest CD (Newest? you mean there are more of them?) by saying "Please buy my new CD... I've only sold one today!" I have no idea how long he'd been there assaulting the senses of unknown numbers of Borders patrons, but it must have been a while.
Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that he was there because he was friends with the staff. He seemed familiar with them as he threw out some lame inside jokes with the guys in the coffee bar, but just sad really. Before I finally walked off, I heard him point out a customer, in a kilt, and challenge him to come up and show whether the customer was kilted in the "traditional way". I almost wish I had stayed to see. But there is only so much I can stand and I walked off full of barely contained laughter, wishing for the world I had had a video camera with him explaining that his next song was dedicated to the love of his life.
Of couse, the then went on to explain that she was a lying, cheating whore and how she had "ripped his beating heart from his chest, threw it to the dirty, dusty ground and then shredded it to tiny pieces with her high heels..." Bitter maybe?
I really started getting hungry, so I grabbed the book I was after and headed to the front to pay. There I got my second treat of the evening. Imagine it if you will...
The counter at Borders. The hapless bookseller doing her job, selling books, being friendly and earning less than a living wage. Up to her register comes this hambeast and her tubby husband and offspring in tow.
They start off by asking about some paranormal magazine that Borders is supposed to carry.
"But I KNOW Borders carries it! They had it in Cary last week"
The girl explains that they don't have it here, and maybe it was a special order for someone. Then the couple launches into a dueling paranormals discussion with the poor bookseller about their fame in the Haunted House Investigation world. They took turns regaling her with names of the many places they've been called in to do an "investigation". Places like Lewisburg, West Virginia and upper Bumble Fuck Wisconsin. Places most people can't even find on the map.
I paid for my book and just about ran from the store in tears from laughing, or trying to hold the laughter back. I just hope those dirty looks they were shooting me weren't the precursor to a Hex, Spell, or bit of Voodoo.
Das Aggregator!