Back when I was in college, I worked in the camera and electronics department of a chain department store. It was the days of $1,000+ “camcorders” – even the latest-tech small ones of the day were larger than the standard palm-sized stuff of today. Here are two true anecdotes from my time selling these instruments.

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A man and an obviously pregnant woman came in to find a camcorder. While the husband talked with me about the various features of the cameras, the wife was sitting down on an exercise machine in the nearby sporting goods department. After a few minutes, I noticed the woman breathing quickly—it looked very odd to someone who had never seen Lamaze before.

I mentioned her breathing, “Is she alright?”

The man looked over at her and said, “She’s in labor.”

“Now? Here?” I said, shocked.

“Yeah,” he said, “We’re getting the camera to tape the birth.”

I speeded up my explanations and got a camcorder in the couple’s hands as quickly as I could. They left happy, and hurriedly.

* * *

We kept the camcorders in a glass cabinet behind the glass case-counter. The cabinets were locked and we had specific protocols for showing the camcorders: never more than one camera out at a time (put the first back before taking out a second), never leave a camera on the counter unattended, etc.—some cameras cost as much as $1,500, so theft was a big concern.

I walked up to the counter one time and saw an unattended camcorder sitting on top. I looked around and saw no one around. I figured that someone had left it out accidentally, so I picked it up to put it away. At that moment, I didn’t have a key for cabinet, so I took the camera into our secure electronics storeroom and set it on a shelf. I then went to help a customer elsewhere in the department.

Unknown to me, a customer had brought in his own camera to get guidance on how to use it. A salesman was helping him, and they had stepped over to a rack of blank video tapes. (They were around a corner, just out of my sight when I walked up and saw the camera on the counter.)

When they came back to the counter, the camera was missing. (I was already gone from the spot.) Both the customer and salesman were concerned. The salesman called up to the customer service desk, at the front of the store, and asked if they had seen anyone leave with a camcorder. The woman answering the phone had seen the customer enter the store with a camcorder, and she thought that’s what the salesman meant, so she said, “Yes.”

The salesman, holding the phone, standing with the customer, said, “You did?”

The customer heard that and got immediately upset. Without waiting another moment to hear the salesman get clarification, he bolted. He ran to the front of the store, out the exit doors.

The entrance and exit of our store was inside a small mall. The entrance of the mall near our store was the standard glass doors in a huge glass wall. The customer ran full out toward the mall exit, misjudged where the doors were, and smashed right into the glass wall. Witnesses in a small restaurant beside the mall entrance described what happened. The man hit a glass panel and bounced back about ten feet to fall on his back, in a daze.

Hearing about all the excitement, I went out into the mall to see what happened for my self. Someone had already taken the man to the hospital, but the blood and mucus was still on the unbroken glass pane where his nose had hit. The same signs were on the floor about ten feet back from the window. Witnesses said the man wasn’t seriously injured, so it seemed alright for folks to laugh at the accident.

A few minutes later, back in the electronics department, I learned why the man had run out of the store—he thought someone had stolen his camera, and he apparently intended to run out and get it back.

I told my manager what I had done with the camera, and he told me to just not tell anyone else. I didn’t tell anyone else at the store, but I’ve been telling this story to friends for years since.

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I bet you expected to hear about some embarassing video recordings. Well, there was one incident, but it really isn’t as intricate or interesting as the above tales.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Well, I wasn’t dancing in the rain; I was just walking. I started out on my daily exercise walk and it began to rain. Being out in the rain on a hot summer day is one of those simple pleasures that I rarely get to experience. The timing has to be just right: when I’m not in “good” clothes, I don’t have to see someone soon, and I can get a shower afterward (don’t want to smell wet the rest of the day).

Several weeks ago it rained on a hot afternoon when I was home with the boys, and we all ran out and got soaked. We all had a great time, and my wife got pictures of the event. It was the boys’ first time in a summer rain, and they just ran around like they were crazy.

I highly recommend everyone getting out in a summer rain at least once a year.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

How long are you supposed to keep a birthday card after your birthday? I’ve always usually kept them a week or two, and then throw them out. Only super special ones, like those handmade by my boys, get kept beyond that time.

One I’m about to throw out is one of those new musical Hallmark cards. The front says, in the Star Wars scroll look, “A long, long time ago. . .” Opening it up starts the Star Wars theme music, and the text inside says, “You were born.” It’s actually pretty cool for a Star Wars geek, like me. I’ve opened it a dozen times in the past couple weeks just to hear the music. I’m debating keeping this card till the battery runs out and it won’t play anymore.

As cool as the music is, the card makes me laugh at myself every time I look at it. Any Star Wars geek can tell you that the correct line is, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” You see: “A long time ago,” not “A long, long time ago.” The double adjective in the real Star Wars text is “far.”

Yes, I am that pedantic. And when I laugh with this card, I’m fully conscious that I’m not laughing at the card or the writer or the person who gave it to me; I’m laughing at myself for knowing the correct wording, and noticing and caring that it is wrong on the card.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I took my boys to a playground for a couple hours today. It was a mild day, in the mid 80s temperature, with relatively low humidity. Last week it was hot, in the mid 90s with the usual high humidity.

A woman near me was talking on her cell phone, and commented to whoever she was talking to, “We’re going to the pool in a few minutes. It’s just too hot today.” She said this “too hot” thing several times during her conversation, as she paced around the sand box where her child was playing.

I leaned over and commented to the mother sitting on a bench near me, “She’s obviously not from here, if she thinks today is too hot.” That mother and another laughed. “Today is nice,” one said.

Half the humor of my comment was overlooking the cell phone talker’s Yankee accent. I pegged the mother as a New Yorker. She was also thanking the person on the other end of her cell call for telling her about this playground—it really is a great place.

Before that, I saw and heard two women talking in some east European language. Later, I saw and heard a husband and wife talking in probably Hindi. At one point in there, I saw and heard an Asian mother speaking to her child in English with a heavy accent.

I was the only one I heard say, “Y’all” or “fixin’.”

“Boys, y’all come on. We’re fixin’ to leave.”

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com