Involuntary Man’s Laughter

Working for a retail giant bookstore chain is a good idea on paper, when you’re in your 20s. You start with grandiose ideas of turning everyone on to your favorite authors, favorite movies and favorite music, and making like-minded friends. On the second day or soon thereafter, disillusion starts to set, like cranberry juice on a white v-neck Fruit of the Loom. The first rule of retail, “The customer is always right,” is pure…well, I don’t want to say gaslighting. (Everything is gaslighting nowadays.) Customers are so seldom right, the ones who know what they’re looking for stand out like George Clinton at a Klan rally. Then, there are the customers who seem to have taken the shuttle bus from Pluto. I used to work at Borders in Oklahoma City. I have a lot of weird and sometimes funny memories of my time there. Here’s an anecdote of an encounter I had with a customer fresh off the intergalactic bus.

He was a short, dark haired man in his 30s. He said he loved the old Warren Beatty/Faye Dunaway “Bonnie and Clyde” movie so much he wanted any books pertaining to the real-life despair pair. He got hung up on a book with a title that hinted at some misunderstanding of the demonic duo. “Yeah, were they victims, or villains?” he said thoughtfully, “That would be a great debate topic. That and the life of Christ.” (I’m not sure how he made the jump to Jesus or why he had doubts about whether to canonize or cannon Parker and Barrow.) I nodded, but said nothing, although my jaw might have slacked wide enough to house a small blimp. I had some questions, besides the obvious one about what Christ had to do, had to do, with it.

My curiosity was somewhat satisfied when his wife excitedly showed up with an armload of “Underdog” videos. For him. It was then I released a little involuntary man’s laughter.

Now, let’s listen to some records: