Yesterday, in the late afternoon, a customer came into the store looking to purchase a chainsaw. He was an older man, and as he walked past me on his way to the saws, I caught a heavy whiff of cigarette smoke. After he had selected a saw and the guys took it back to the shop to fill it with gas and start it, he came back up front to wait. Business on the rental side had been pretty slow all day, and the only other customers in the store at the time were way over on the hardware side. With the exception of their far off chatter, the low mumbling of voices on the radio, and the gentle patter of rain on the roof, all was pretty quiet.
Until he came.
When you buy a Stihl chainsaw or string-trimmer, it comes with a warranty (different lengths of time for different purposes- home use? Professional?). All you have to do is fill out a little piece of paper with some basic information, and then later on I go on Stihl's website and I enter the warranties, so that if there is a problem with the equipment within the confines of the warranty, we will fix the machine with no cost to you. Fascinating stuff!
Anyway, while this man's chainsaw was being prepped, I figured he could at least fill out the warranty while he waited. So, I took the slip of paper out of the paperwork packet and slid it across the counter towards him, along with an ACE pen.
"Ohh, hell no," he said gruffly. "That's way too damn small, and I didn't bring my cheaters. You're gonna have to fill it out for me, 'cause I can't see a goddamn thing."
Fine, fine. He was not the first to come without glasses and make this request, and he won't be the last. So I pulled the slip of paper back towards me and poised my pen, ready to write.
I would like to stop now and tell you, I had a feeling about this man. I suspected he might be a talker! Because he had begun to chatter as soon as he cleared the front doors, spent a good 10 minutes talking to the guys from the shop, and had been yapping all the way back from the chainsaw section up to the front. My suspicions were confirmed as I asked him question after question and not only receiving his answers, but snippets of his life's story. I will not tell you his personal information, of course, but...
He said, and I quote: "Truckers are the scum of the earth! They are lowlifes with no respect for anybody!" You see, he had been (for a number of years!) a worker at a gas station and had to deal with truckers for a very long time. He had a funny habit of saying something harsh or explicit, and then apologizing for it... right before saying something similar. For example:
"And those messy sonsofbitches-- sorry, hon-- well, you know how they like to piss in bottles, then throw their piss-bottles out the window? Well it's guys like me that have to pick them up! Bastards! Oh, sorry. But you know what's worse?? Now they've taken to shitting-- sorry for the language-- SHITTING in plastic bags and throwing the bags out the windows! And you know who has to pick the shit-bags up? Guys like ME!"
All this-- and more!-- I learned from asking for his name and address! And you should have heard him when I asked for a telephone number... apparently he has "theories" about the government concerning phone numbers. Needless to say, I didn't get it, and didn't even attempt to ask for an email.
Anyway, this just got me thinking and reminiscing about the more more memorable customers I've had.
I remember a year or two ago, my sister and I were working outside in the hot July sun, watering what was left of our greenhouse nursery stock. Two older women came and were checking out the plants-- well, one was. The other was eyeing my sister with fear and distaste. You see, my sister was wearing a concert T-shirt she had gotten years and years prior, from GIGANTOUR, a metal music festival. On the black shirt was a list of the bands underneath a giant genie coming out of a lamp. I mean, it was metal music so it didn't look like the Genie from Aladdin, but it really wasn't too alarming. But the woman thought so-- because she didn't think it was a genie! She thought it was the devil. And she was aghast! My sister gave the woman's friend a good deal on some of the plants left, and she went happily inside to pay. My sister was helping the pious lady start loading the plants when the lady casually mentioned that she had noticed the devil on the t-shirt, which deeply offended her, and stated that she was afraid for my sister's troubled, disturbed, devil-worshiping soul! Wearing the devil's likeness is inviting him to possess you, don't ya know! Devout as the lady was, she suggested my sister start going to church, or at the very least, read the Bible-- that might make her more willing to cast the devil out!
I know deep down the lady meant well, it was just ridiculous to those who know my sister AT ALL, and my sister found it pretty rude and insulting that the lady lecture her like that. IT WAS A FREAKING GENIE!!
Finally, I remember an encounter I had probably 2 or 3 years ago. I had a man come into the store, and he looked rough. He was pretty obviously homeless and travelling. His clothes were filthy and he had mud caked under his fingernails. From what I could tell, he had two possessions in the whole world- a stained, worn backpack and a best friend, his dog. The dog he left outside. He told it to stay, and it did, his obedient companion. Upon entering the store, he came directly to the front counter.
"Ma'am," he said quietly, "Sorry to interrupt. I saw there's a 'No Backpacks' sign on your door, so here is mine-" he handed it over. "May I please use your restroom?"
For some reason, he just sticks in my mind, because he looked kind of questionable, but he was, by far, the most polite and dignified person I saw all day. And I never saw him again.
I would like to note that the opinions mentioned above are the customer's not mine! For example, I have no problem whatsoever with truck drivers...
Happy Wordsday Thursday, guys!
Sarah
P.S. Thanks Emmy for helping reminisce about your devil worshiping days ;)
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