RECORD STORE TALES Part 165:  Cassette Case Man

The setting:  my store

The year:  1997

The characters:  me and a scary dude

Remember tape cases?  Some looked like briefcases.  You could store anywhere from 24 to 60 tapes in one case, which snapped shut with a clasp.  Others were double sided, made of nylon, zipped shut, and could hold 120 cassette tapes.  At my peak, I owned about 10 cases altogether, different sizes, to hold my cassette collection.

We had phased out tapes completely by 1996.  It was a dead format.  CD had taken over completely, and our stores were some of the first in the area to go 100% CD.   You could still buy tapes downtown at Encore Records, and I occasionally still did.  I remember buying Fireball, by Deep Purple, on tape there in 1996, because finding a CD in town was impossible.

One afternoon in ’97, when I was working alone, a big dude walked into the store.  Outside of a Tarantino movie, I’d never heard so many “F-bombs” dropped in one conversation.   Luckily I was journaling back then and recorded the conversation for posterity.

Big guy:  “Hey, where are your cassette boxes?”

Me:  “You mean like tape cases, for carrying your tapes around with you?”

Big guy:  “Yeah, them fuckin’ things.”

Me:  “Uhh…we don’t carry those anymore.  We phased out tapes a while ago.”

Big guy:  “Fuck.  You fuckin’ sure you got nothin’?”

Me:  “Yeah, pretty sure.  We don’t carry tapes, so we don’t carry tape accessories either.”

Big guy: “Why the fuck don’t you carry tapes?  What are people supposed to do who listen to fuckin’ tapes?”

Me:  “Well, you could try the mall.  I think some of those stores carry tapes.  They probably have cases too.”

Big guy: “Think so?”

Me:  “It’s worth a try?”

Big guy: “Fuck.  I’ll just make one.”

Me:  “OK.”

Big guy: “Yeah.  Fuck.  I’ll just buy some fuckin’ wood.  Cut ‘er up nice and build a fuckin’ box for my tapes.  Just get some fuckin’ wood, fuckin’ slap ‘er together, and make a fuckin’ tape box of my own.  Yeah.  That’s what I’ll do.”

Me: “…That sounds like a good idea.”

Big guy: “Fuck, it’ll be easy, I’ll just buy some fuckin’ wood.”

And I never saw him again.  True fuckin’ story!