Sunday, February 20, 2011

a special spot in hell.

Three days ago my roommate and I visited the MCC Furniture and More store in the hopes of finding a tacky phone to hook up to our buzzer. Not only did we find a phone (alas not tacky but cute) we..or should I say I..invested in an obscene number of VHS. For only a dollar each, I purchased the original Star Wars trilogy, Braveheart, Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, Waynes World, and a few other gems I'm too embarrassed to post. We did, however, have a copy of Jurassic Park thrown in for free, for a reason I will forever feel guilt for in the bottom of my soul.
MCC stands for Mennonite Central Committee, where 'every purchase is a gift to the world. ' (http://thrift.mcc.org/) Run -to my knowledge- mostly by volunteers, MCC provides a great selection of quality used (donated) goods with proceeds to various charities.
Now, as soon as Taylor and I walk into this particular warehouse, we are greeted by (and subsequently 'helped' by) an onslaught of lovely old men working the salesfloor. Most of these men took great delight in the (mild) verbal abuse I issued to Taylor, as well as his unencumbered responses to my er, direction. Basically 'good boys do what they are told',
'don't touch that','no - you can't have that', and 'how many times do I have to tell you to stop picking your nose in public.' etc.
Naturally, these nice old folk assumed Taylor and I must be married. (Why else would a man put up with that kind of garbage?)While the cashier was ringing through my 27 videos, we were chatting about our aquired treasures, and the man said something along the lines of 'well, you said 'I do' once, and now...' to Taylor, and then proceeded to throw in that copy of Jurrassic Park on the house. After thanking the cashier and gathering our things ('are you going to carry my bags, SWEETHEART?') Taylor and I carefully left the store without making eye contact.
I doubt if we would have corrected him he would have charged us fully for the video, no, that is not my concern. Why didn't we correct him? Judgement? Aversion to awkward situations? I don't know, but I feel as if I duped God's children out of 90 cents. I felt like a heathen thief. Like a souless con artist. I will never be able to look at dinosaurs the same way again.

3 comments:

  1. I think you made me pee my pants. In the good way.

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  2. Was this by any chance the original theatrical Star Wars trilogy (the version prior to the special edition release)? If so, I might have to borrow it.

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