CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Mistaking Two Men Who Have A Specific Thing In Common

Monday, March 03, 2014

this entry brought to you by queens of the stone age, "my god is the sun"


There's an Israeli fellow that shops at my store, and I despise him. I don't know if you've ever encountered an Israeli, but they tend to be, in the experience of Americans, pushy. Maybe this fellow in Israel is the nicest dad in the whole world. But here, he is pushy and is constantly demanding the most specific things in the world.

"Excuse me, buddy, excuse me. Can you help me real quick?" he asks, getting much too close to my personal space, speaking very hurriedly, in that pace that makes you nervous just listening to it.

He says these words, but it will not be real quick.

"Do you have 9 grain bread?" He'll ask.

"The bread is in aisle 5," I say, sighing, taking him to aisle 5 as that is part of our good customer service.

"Yes, but see, I don't see any 9 grain bread. Do you know if you have it elsewhere?"

"No, this is the only place we have bread."

"Do you think you might have any in the back?" he'll ask, even though there is no place on the shelf that says 9 grain bread, so it is not sold out but in the backroom, it is not sold here, so it is not in the building.

"I'm sorry sir, we don't carry 9 grain bread. We have multi grain, and we have 7 grain, and we have 5 grain. But we do not have 9 grain."

"But I don't need 7 grain, I need 9 grain."

"I'm sorry, this is all we have."

"And anchovy paste? Do you have Liebowitz Anchovy Paste?" he'll ask.

I take him to the anchovy paste. "Here we go, anchovy paste," I say.

"No, see, this is Menkowicz Anchovy Paste. I need Liebowitz."

"This is all the anchovy paste we have," I say.

"Do you have any in another section?"

"No," I say. "This is all the anchovy paste we have."

This customer can suck minutes out of my time asking for nonsense that anybody else in the world would shrug and say "Man, it sucks that they don't have this thing, I'll replace it with something else very similar and literally no one will know the difference."

When I spot him in our store, I avoid him. I hide. I don't look in his direction. I peer around corners to see if he's gone. I'll look busy if he starts looking in my direction. I'll do anything to not get sucked into his sphere. But anyone who has ever worked with customers knows people like this. The real problem is that he looks exactly like another customer, who is just a guy. But they are exactly the same height, have the exact same bald spot, have the exact same goatee, have the same frame. I literally cannot tell them apart unless I'm dead on and close enough to him that he will ensnare me if it's the Israeli I abhor.

When I'm in the store and I see him, and I avoid the shit out of him, and I turn a corner and-- gasp!-- I'm just a foot away from him, my whole world is about to become ensnared in this horrible, annoying person, and I realize it's the other guy, and that I literally cannot tell these two jews apart unless they're right up on me, I feel like the biggest Anti-Semite in the world.

with love from CRS @ 12:18 PM 

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