retail

Summer 2000

Part 35: Credit Due

RECORD STORE TALES Part 35: Credit Due 

In the late fall of 1995, my enthusiasm for the store had never been greater.  I had already created and posted our very first online ads, on my own time.  The first one was in November of 1994.  I posted it on every C-Net BBS (Bulletin Board System) in the area code.  I drew a full colour (but very blocky!) version of our logo, using the most state of the art BBS software of the time.  It took hours.  In the ad, I hyped that we would be carrying the new Vitalogy album by Pearl Jam the following week, on vinyl!  Limited quantities!

I did this on my own time, because I loved the store.

But back to 1995.  I thought that we had already done an excellent job of giving the store some rocking personality and quality stock.  I had never been more psyched.  I used to go to Future Shop, again on my own time, just to check their prices and stock versus ours.

I decided I wanted to get writing.  I’ve always loved writing and I thought the store could be the vehicle.  I came up with the idea of doing the monthly newsletter.  I even put together a primitive prototype.  It was printed on tractor feed printer paper by a dot matrix printer, stapled in the top left.  It was all I had, but the point was to do a proof-of-concept.  I was demonstrating that we could come up with our own content, from reviews to charts, and do it our way with humour. Not like all the lame corporate type newsletters that other stores had.

The idea was met with dead glances as I passed around my prototypes.  It was shot down for being “too expensive”.

In 1997, the newsletter idea was revived.  It was like mine, but folded instead of stapled, and in two colours at first (red and black).  The kid that printed it couldn’t spell worth shit, but he made it look acceptable for the period.  I received no credit or recognition for what was my idea, nor did I have any creative control at all. I felt like my idea had been taken away from me. But, I went along with it, I happily contributed.  It was better than nothing.

Finally, I was the guy who ran our website, solo, for the first year or two of its operation.  I conceived all the initial procures, I filled the orders, kept the books, filed the emails, and I corresponded with the customers.  I did it all, myself.  I even wrote the FAQ page, and in fact some of my original words are still there online today.  I answered every customer email and question, myself, positive or negative.  For a little while I had my own office with a computer and phone to work out of, although it was about the size of a toilet. It was still a very rewarding experience.

The website was taken away from me because I was told that my time was “more valuable to us in the store.” Fuck! I didn’t spend all those years working at this place to just end up in a store, I wanted to be in an office, doing stuff! That was what I had been promised! I was turning 30, and I didn’t want to be working in a store anymore in my 30’s, but again, I went along with it, because it was better than nothing.

Some of the other people from the organization say that I didn’t stand up for myself enough, that I should have called bullshit on a lot of stuff.  They were obviously right, but I was always sort of a peacemaker.  Never wanted to raise a stink.  So I didn’t.  I kept the peace and kept my tongue.

But what the hell? I’m proud of what I accomplished there, out of sheer passion to be involved and creative, and it’s time I said so.

 

The fallout was immediate.  Continued in Part 35.5:  Spoogecakes.

Part 7: A Shitty Story

DISCLAIMER:  THIS CHAPTER BEST READ ON AN EMPTY STOMACH.

 

RECORD STORE TALES Part 7: A Shitty Story

August 1995.  Beautiful warm summer day.  The sun was up early and so was I.  It was Sunday, the best day to work the store.  Sunday was just a four hour shift and in the summer, very slow.  It was your basic fun day to be at work, cleaning away and listening to tunes in air conditioning.

I usually walked to work.  I put on some shorts and a big baggy T-shirt and headed out on foot.  The best way cut across this school and park with two baseball diamonds.  While walking I couldn’t help but think of how great life was.  The sun was out, it was summer, I only had to work four hours.  My family was at the cottage that weekend so I had the place to myself when I got home too.

Right in between the first baseball field and the second, I felt my stomach gurgle a little bit.  I’d had the farts a bit that morning but that was nothing unusual.  I continued along my walk.  It sure was a quiet day in town that morning.  I loved the way the sun was shining through the leaves.

As the gurgles continued, I entered the mall.  I strode down the empty hallway to the big glass window of our store and opened the door.

Just when I had closed the door, locked it behind me and was in an enclosed space, I let off another stinker.  It was rotten, like a rotten egg had just been dropped behind me.  It was powerful and sour.  They kept coming too, in little squirts here and there.  I started to feel crampy.

I picked out my music for the day (Joe Satriani), opened the door letting out the smell, and waited for customers.  I was really starting to feel rotten.

I worked the first two hours just farting up a storm.  Unsurprisingly, I didn’t have many customers that day.  They could probably smell me down the hall.  I don’t know what I ate, but I know what my sausage farts smell like, and this was worse.  I wasn’t feeling too mobile anymore, so I pulled up the chair.  Suddenly I really had to shit.  I was still farting too.

2 o’clock rolled around.  I made it halfway through the day.  The rest should be no problem.  Halfway there.  Point of no return!  Hah.  Whatever.  Piece of cake.  Only a few people came in.  The cleaning could wait.  I’d just tell the truth.  I really wasn’t feeling well.  Besides I could really just catch up the next day anyway.

I farted again.  It felt good.  I felt a tremendous amount of relief.

Then, the horror struck.  The feeling that something wasn’t right.  The smell.  I looked down, to see a tiny trickle of liquid shit rolling down my leg….

There was someone in the store!  Holy shit, I couldn’t leave!  Oh fuck.  Oh fuckity-fuck-fuck!

Although I was in complete denial of it at the time, there was no way that guy didn’t smell me.  There was just no fucking way.  It was unavoidable.  It was a wall of stench just hanging there, stale, in the air.  It was incredible.  Still, the man had etiquette.  As he paid for his cassette, he politely asked me, “Are you feeling OK?  You’re turning green.”  I told him I had thrown up earlier.  He wished me well and left.

Completely and totally freaking out, I waddled over to the door and locked the store.  We didn’t have a washroom.  I had no choice, I had to make it to the mall washroom and fast.  I prayed to God that it would be empty.  I improvised a “back in 5 minutes” sign.  I tried to waddle anonymously down the hall.  I hung a right.  Down another hall.  Why the hell were the washrooms so far away?

I entered.  It was empty.  I entered a stall.  Bracing myself for whatever lay ahead, I took a deep breath and prepared to look down below.

It was bad.  A deep puddle of rich brown liquid shit lay in my undies.  Luckily, it had acted as a bowl, to catch most of it.  A few streams went down my legs, but none reached my socks.  Small victory.  I’d take that.

I had no choice, there was only one thing to do.  I removed my shorts, and then carefull removed the underwear while maintaining the bowl shape.  The flushed them down the toilet.  I prayed that it would not plug.  It did not.

Grasping a generous amount of toilet paper, I cleaned myself up the best I could.  The washroom still empty, I wet some paper towels as well.  My shorts had been stained through.  I cleaned them as best I could but they were definitely tainted.  Luckily, my baggy shirt, when untucked, more than covered the stain.

I sat there on the store chair the next two hours, not moving my ass once.  I phoned up Tom who was in Waterloo.  “I just threw up man,” I lied.  “What should I do?  Should I go home?  I have two more hours to go.”

Tom urged me to go home, but some perverse sense of duty prevented it.  I’d hang in there.  That day, our store earned a record low amount. $99 in sales, for the day.  That record stood the whole time I worked there.  Even on the worst snow days we’ve ever had, my record stood.

I closed up shop.  Spraying our vinyl chair with a healthy dose of Lysol, I wiped it down.  It stank.  I cleaned it again until the smell was gone.  The last of the evidence was wiped clean.  I waddled home, the shit now drying in the crack of my ass.

As I walked, the friction turned to heat, the heat turned to burning, and the burning turned to agony.  I walked through the park, now occupied by many people watching a baseball game.  I strode between the crowd and the diamond, the only pathway.  I walked like I had a pickle up my ass.

I got home, tossed out the shorts, ran a shower and cleaned myself thoroughly with generous amounts of soap.  After my shower, I just ran a cold bath and soaked.  Ahhh.

When you have a day like that, you can handle anything, I guarantee it.  I am not ashamed of my incontinence.  Rather, there is a lesson here.  Shitting your pants is definitely a good reason to close the store early!