Blog Stuff: Miscellaneous ramblings...

My plan to go to bed early last night was foiled by the fact that I woke up at, like, 2:50AM. Wide awake, I sat and poked at the 'net and read the latest at pdb's blog.

Then, still wide awake, I read some older stuff at pdb's blog.

Then I read everything at pdb's blog.

pdb, for those unaware of him, is someone who must have committed a heinous crime in a previous incarnation, for his chosen hell is not a place so full of mature consumers as, say, a music store or a gun shop; no, pdb has chosen the self-flagellation of the vidjo game bidness. I once worked in a Babbage's; six weeks of slinging Nintendo cartridges to the maturity-challenged and pimple-gifted in a mall would have extirpated the karmic debt of axe-murdering my grandparents, so one can only imagine what his past-life transgression was. *Shudder!*

Interesting to note the pet peeves we share...

Although some folks may think that the retail pixies magically seed my shelves with merchandise, this is actually not the case. Every day I have to walk the floor, determine what has sold and how fast, decide if anything new is needed, order the stuff, put it in the computer, price it, and put it out on the floor. Believe it or don't, stuff is hanging on certain pegs, in certain places, in a certain order for a reason. I can walk past my rack of, say, Galco holsters and, on the fly, out of the corner of my eye, know what's missing and needs to be re-ordered. Theoretically.

In real life, what happens is the nice customer comes up and asks "Do you have a nice holster for my Expensomatic Importblaster?"

"Why certainly, sir; I have a few different options for you. Do you prefer kydex or leather?"

"Oh, leather."

I walk him over to the Galco rack and point out both IWB and OWB styles for his pistol. He requests IWB. I show him the Galco Summer Comfort. He fondles the packaging, then opens the bag to huff some leather fumes. His lips move slightly as he silently reads the list of Expensomatic models that will fit this holster. Then his eyes widen. He has reached the price tag. The thought of putting his $800+ investment, hand-assembled from the finest virgin injection-molded polymer by Geman gun gnomes in the depths of the Schwarzenwald, in a holster that costs a staggering $64.99 is just too much to contemplate.

He starts to put it back.

Now, as an aside, I should mention that people who look for inside-the-waistband holsters for whamdigious huge plastic blasters are few and far between, therefore I only keep one of this particular model in stock. That means that, right in front of him, in the middle of a wall full of Galco holsters, is one empty peg, its backtag there to guide his hand home like a weary traveller to a firelit tavern on a winter's eve. His hand with the bagged holster wanders uncertainly forward and...

...puts it on the wrong peg.

"Can you show me something in kydex? Maybe around $20?"

"Sure, sir, follow me."

*sigh*