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It was a slow day for the first hour of work one day last winter, when I got a customer (I'll call him "C") in that was, in a word, interesting. He came in with a battery warranty card, and wanted a new battery. Naturally, he did not have the old, bad battery. When I told him that he needed to have the old battery to claim the warranty, he started to complain, saying that he didn't want to carry the battery all of that distance. (They are car batteries, and I admit are tough to carry) I told him that he could just grab a shopping cart, and bring it in from the parking lot. Then he told me that he walked from Armenia, and didn't want to haul it in from there.
For those of you that don't know the geography of my corner of the world, Armenia is a tiny hamlet 25 kilometers outside of Camrose, the town in which I live. By his own admission, it took him five hours to walk into town.
He then asks me to borrow the phone to call a friend to shuttle him back and forth between our store and his stranded car. He then proceeded to whip out his cell phone, scroll through the numbers, and phone people.
He must have seen the look on my face, and he explained it by saying, "I didn't want to waste my minutes by phoning anybody for help. It's a pay-as-you-go-phone." Uh, OK...
So he finally gets a hold of someone, and they go to take out the battery out of the old car. (Which he continually referred to as "Jap scrap") He gets back an hour later, and we finally exchange the battery. (It was drained of power, meaning that his alternator was shot, and that he would be back in a few days. But I digress...) He then proceeded to tell me that the night before, he realized that the car was dying, so he turned it around to go home. Naturally the car died in mid U-turn, and he coasted to a stop on the side of the road. So instead of using his cell phone to phone for help, he decided to go to bed. In his car. In the middle of winter. In CANADA, when it dropped to -20C that night.
Oh, it keeps going.
C was talking to his buddy that gave him a ride, and our dummy let it slip that he was the brother of someone that I'll just call E. E is a separate segment off unto himself, and maybe one day I'll tell you know about him. But for the purposes of this story, just know that it explains a LOT of the behavior of C.
Anyway, in the course of talking the friend, the friend asked why he didn't want to call his bother, or his parents.
C said back, "Well, they don't actually know that I just bought a car, and I don't want them to find out."
Oh, dear...
Finally, near the end of the conversation, C let this slip out of his mouth, while talking to his friend: Not only does C not let his parents in on the "I have a car" secret, C also doesn't let the fact that he doesn't have a drivers license stop him from driving around in the middle of the night. Hell, he doesn't even have a learners permit! Although he never said anything about it, I doubt he would bother with insurance...
And the final kicker? He's now happy that he got the new battery, because he had a date that night...
*sigh*
For those of you that don't know the geography of my corner of the world, Armenia is a tiny hamlet 25 kilometers outside of Camrose, the town in which I live. By his own admission, it took him five hours to walk into town.
He then asks me to borrow the phone to call a friend to shuttle him back and forth between our store and his stranded car. He then proceeded to whip out his cell phone, scroll through the numbers, and phone people.
He must have seen the look on my face, and he explained it by saying, "I didn't want to waste my minutes by phoning anybody for help. It's a pay-as-you-go-phone." Uh, OK...
So he finally gets a hold of someone, and they go to take out the battery out of the old car. (Which he continually referred to as "Jap scrap") He gets back an hour later, and we finally exchange the battery. (It was drained of power, meaning that his alternator was shot, and that he would be back in a few days. But I digress...) He then proceeded to tell me that the night before, he realized that the car was dying, so he turned it around to go home. Naturally the car died in mid U-turn, and he coasted to a stop on the side of the road. So instead of using his cell phone to phone for help, he decided to go to bed. In his car. In the middle of winter. In CANADA, when it dropped to -20C that night.
Oh, it keeps going.
C was talking to his buddy that gave him a ride, and our dummy let it slip that he was the brother of someone that I'll just call E. E is a separate segment off unto himself, and maybe one day I'll tell you know about him. But for the purposes of this story, just know that it explains a LOT of the behavior of C.
Anyway, in the course of talking the friend, the friend asked why he didn't want to call his bother, or his parents.
C said back, "Well, they don't actually know that I just bought a car, and I don't want them to find out."
Oh, dear...
Finally, near the end of the conversation, C let this slip out of his mouth, while talking to his friend: Not only does C not let his parents in on the "I have a car" secret, C also doesn't let the fact that he doesn't have a drivers license stop him from driving around in the middle of the night. Hell, he doesn't even have a learners permit! Although he never said anything about it, I doubt he would bother with insurance...
And the final kicker? He's now happy that he got the new battery, because he had a date that night...
*sigh*