I work at a store that sells neon clocks with sports logos on them, Elvis and Betty Boop merchandise, and ICP shotglasses, among other things. Here are some of the best (dumbest) questions I’ve heard.
- do y’all make neon signs?
- I was wondering if yall sold little statues of ladies showin’ they ass. Do you? Why not? (he was baffled)
- Do you guys just have this, or is there more in the back? (no, sir, we never keep any backup inventory.)
- I just want the lava stuff inside a lava lamp, do you guys sell that? Well, can we just open one up and I’ll buy the stuff inside?
- Is there anywhere in this mall I can get a beer? (man, don’t I wish.)
- Do you have any more Betty Boop stuff? (an entire 30 foot wall and two sets of standing racks are full of Betty Boop shit)
- You ever get sick of all this Betty Boop shit? (bitch, what do you think?)
- You guys aren’t the pet store, are you?
Also, one of the cops who gave me a citation for paraphernalia a while back came in to the store to return some shoplifted merchandise (they had caught the culprit elsewhere in the mall.)
“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” he asked me.
“Yeah! Hi! I’m the guy whose office you ransacked. Remember? You found like, enough seeds to fill a beer cap and charged me with paraphernalia! How are you? I didn’t lose the job because of that, by the way, we were closing anyway. I only got a $50 fine. How are you?” I put on my best sarcastic smile for him.
“At least you didn’t do any hard time.”
I smiled wryly and made sidelong eye contact with him, putting the returned sunglasses back on the rack. “I wasn’t worried,” I said, “except about your raging eczema. You ever gonna beat that eczema, man? Babies have that shit.”
I have never seen a more impotently angry police officer in my life. He walked off.
Puma Jones 