takhtakaal
Member
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2007
- Messages
- 853
The wife and I were running errands this evening, including a run for essentials to BJ's, and our path was going to cross in front of a Wal*Mart somewhat at the normal limit of my area travels.
Things being what they are these days, and prices getting slammed upward every few weeks, I wanted to stop in and grab some bulk .22 LR before it goes up again. $12 boxes of ammo have become $15 boxes lately, and the jumps are even worse at the non-discount places like Dick's and Cabela's.
Anyway, I digress.
The sporting goods counter guy, "Joe," saw me walking up, took one look at me, decided (it was kind of obvious) that he wasn't going to wait on me, and did an about face as I was saying "excuse me" and walked out through the swinging gate doors.
Wanting to see something on clearance that was in one of the display tops, I nudged the sliding door a bit to see if it was locked. That got a perturbed response from an "off duty" store employee who saw me. She called someone over to help me, but he didn't have the keys, so he had to call the hooky-playing sporting goods guy back to the counter on the PA system.
Well, "Joe" wasn't any too happy to see me standing there, and even less happy to help me. I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about the clearance item after seeing it, and then asked him what bulk Federal 550 round .22 LR was going for a piece.
Still being under $12 for the time being, I was going to get two more to sock away against a rainier day, so I asked him to ring me two boxes.
At this point I was rather astounded. He looks at me with unhidden disgust and says "I wanna see some ID."
You should know, at this juncture, that I'm a minority member of sorts, one who looks to be, at least to some eyes, perhaps, a little Middle Eastern. I'll refrain from details, but my minority status is obvious.
Now, ol' "Joe" wasn't doing the Wal*Mart "is this for a rifle or a pistol" dance, and he wasn't carding me because I look like a spring chicken; I'm 47, look just about every day of it, and have a long beard, shot through with a generous amount of ugly grey. And I don't live in a state that makes people go through any ID hoops to purchase ammo, not in the least.
No, "Joe" was just being "Joe," since "Joe" was apparently making rapid and stupid assumptions about me. I can say that with the same certainty that one says that Wiley E. Coyote is about to buy the farm in a Road Runner cartoon by judging the appearance of the rapidly growing shadow of a ton of Acme™ ordnance just north of Wiley's soon-to-be-crushed head.
So, I showed "Joe" my CCW, and I think "Joe" is still cleaning out his underwear.
Tomorrow, I'm talking to the store manager about his "papieren, bitte" crap.
Things being what they are these days, and prices getting slammed upward every few weeks, I wanted to stop in and grab some bulk .22 LR before it goes up again. $12 boxes of ammo have become $15 boxes lately, and the jumps are even worse at the non-discount places like Dick's and Cabela's.
Anyway, I digress.
The sporting goods counter guy, "Joe," saw me walking up, took one look at me, decided (it was kind of obvious) that he wasn't going to wait on me, and did an about face as I was saying "excuse me" and walked out through the swinging gate doors.
Wanting to see something on clearance that was in one of the display tops, I nudged the sliding door a bit to see if it was locked. That got a perturbed response from an "off duty" store employee who saw me. She called someone over to help me, but he didn't have the keys, so he had to call the hooky-playing sporting goods guy back to the counter on the PA system.
Well, "Joe" wasn't any too happy to see me standing there, and even less happy to help me. I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about the clearance item after seeing it, and then asked him what bulk Federal 550 round .22 LR was going for a piece.
Still being under $12 for the time being, I was going to get two more to sock away against a rainier day, so I asked him to ring me two boxes.
At this point I was rather astounded. He looks at me with unhidden disgust and says "I wanna see some ID."
You should know, at this juncture, that I'm a minority member of sorts, one who looks to be, at least to some eyes, perhaps, a little Middle Eastern. I'll refrain from details, but my minority status is obvious.
Now, ol' "Joe" wasn't doing the Wal*Mart "is this for a rifle or a pistol" dance, and he wasn't carding me because I look like a spring chicken; I'm 47, look just about every day of it, and have a long beard, shot through with a generous amount of ugly grey. And I don't live in a state that makes people go through any ID hoops to purchase ammo, not in the least.
No, "Joe" was just being "Joe," since "Joe" was apparently making rapid and stupid assumptions about me. I can say that with the same certainty that one says that Wiley E. Coyote is about to buy the farm in a Road Runner cartoon by judging the appearance of the rapidly growing shadow of a ton of Acme™ ordnance just north of Wiley's soon-to-be-crushed head.
So, I showed "Joe" my CCW, and I think "Joe" is still cleaning out his underwear.
Tomorrow, I'm talking to the store manager about his "papieren, bitte" crap.
