So I want to OWN JERICHO. Yes. I check Barns & Noble. They have it! Brilliant! But I don't see it on sale.
It's not busy in the music department. I live in a smallish suburb, so maybe that's why, plus it was later in the afternoon. I see someone who is an employee matching special order labels to a shipment. Yeah...I used to work Music at Barns & Noble. I know exactly what she's doing. It's not exactly something that's incredibly pressing.
I ask her, nice as you please, 'Excuse me, but are there any nifty sales on these boxsets?' and I hold up Jericho Season 1 and Jericho Season 2. Yes, I said nifty. 'Say, a coupon I can print out? Or a sign I just totally missed?'
Nope. Oh, well, too bad. I'll just wait on it until I have the dough to pay full-price.
Okay, apparently, waiting on a purchase is NOT AN OPTION. Because all of a sudden, I find myself on the receiving end of the hardest, most snappy sales pitch I have ever heard. It actually stunned me for a second. I was being ushered to a table of boxsets, a endcap of boxsets, all on Black Friday sale, but none I actually want. 'It's okay, I was just looking for these.' just. doesn't. stop. it. Not once. Not twice. Not four freakin' times. "These boxsets - and these boxsets - and these ones are on sale. But only on this table. These are the boxsets that are on sale." Over. and over. and over. and over. AND OVER again.
...I don't know if she's just totally oblivious and got hung up on me saying 'boxsets' despite holding up Jericho Seasons 1 and 2 like a TV demonstrator, but I don't shell out money for boxsets for fun. That shit costs a lot. I had both existing seasons of the SAME DAMN TV SHOW. Clearly, it does matter to me what the content is, not that it's just a lot of DVDs in a nifty package. I would understand if she said something like 'Oh, I'm sorry, Jericho is not on sale, but hey, this TV series is really cool and Skeet Ulrich is in it/has a similar storyline/whatever, and this one's on sale today!'
No. IT'S A BOXSET, SO I MUST FREAKIN' BUY IT.
My face is stuck in this expression > 0_o
Slowly I put the boxsets down on the nearest flat surface. I did music, I did recovery, I am a stickler for putting things back where I found it. But even my morals and hours of Jake Green goodness are not worth this epic weird. I begin to inch away from psycho boxset lady with a weak 'Okay, thanks anyway'. She suddenly snatches them up, huffs on over to the computer and starts double-checking to see if they are, in fact, on sale.
WELL WOULDN'T IT MAKE SENSE TO DO THAT *F
So, hope renewed, I followed her. Oh, no, too bad. No sale. Hope dashed.
Then we start all over again. This time with the membership card. I can get an extra 10% off! Except I have to pay for it. No thanks.
'Well, it's only $25 and you can get 10% off both Season 1 and 2 (If I remember right, a grand savings of $12 bucks altogether) and you can keep using it all year and it's definitely worth it you really SHOULD get the membership if you plan on collecting boxsets -'
I am not ashamed to say I fled. Literally, 'No thanks!' and ran before she could say anything else. There's a fine line between being persuasive and just being weird. You tend to need to have leverage when you're trying to persuade someone - say, trying to sell something they actually LIKE, instead of just the damn packaging.