One of those "I had to run home and blog it" stories

[uberreiniger]

I got forced into working a 12-hour shift last night. I should be in bed. But since I've got a load of towels in the dryer anyway, I have to tell this story.

A few days ago I found a book for one of the RPGs I play on ebay. It was a $20 book for $8 - too good to pass up. Place, the seller was from here in Kansas City. If I won I wouldn't even have to pay postage. Sweet!

I first began to worry with the first e-mail I received from the seller. He seemed... strange. But whatever. We made the arrangement for me to come get the book. He told me to call his store ahead of time since he didn't keep his auctions there. Fair enough. I call yesterday and introduce myself as someone who had just won an ebay auction from someone there at the store (the seller never bothered telling me his name. I just assumed he was the owner,) and I had been told to call before coming to pick it up. It takes two people to figure out what it is I'm talking about, both of whom sound like they're about 58 years old, have just come in from a hard day hauling hay bales down on the farm, and have about three teeth between the two of them. Once they understand what it is I'm after, they say the guy I'm after "ain't here. Call back later." And get hung up on. Oookay.

The owner eventually called me back, and he was nice enough unlike his Texas Chainsaw Massacre cronies had been on the phone. I get directions and agree to come pick the book up today. Since I wanted the book and didn't want to put off getting it, I trekked out to where it was after my 12 hour shift... and couldn't find the place to save my life. It wasn't where he said it would be. I call again, he clarifies the directions and then I find it... along with the reason why I couldn't find it.

You see children, I had been looking for something as charmingly urbane as a shopping center. No, the two-story building he described to me is not a fine emporium of widgets, baubles and geegaws, oh no. There, grafted together like some sick, Lovecraftian siamese twin stood a lumpen, mishapen stone building the bottom half - the cracked, peeling letters of its ancient looking sign not visible from the highway at all - was the gaming store. The upper half belonged to an altogether different type of business. A business advertising itself as KANSAS CITY ARTIFICIAL LIMB, INC.

I don't know what's scarier, a game shop attached to an artificial limb provider or vice versa.

The game shop from the outside was a sight to behold, its windows a nightmare of clutter and shabby, dirty junk. But the bullet hole with its lovely three-foot diameter spiderweb of cracks in the glass, that was the crowning touch. But the inside, however, that was the piece de resistance!

This was not a retail store. This was somebody's closet. Expensive action figures and comic book merchandise sloppily crammed into display cases which turned aisles into gauntlets through which one had to squeeze in one's shoulders in order to walk. Comics, gaming books, and magazines - most of them looking like they had been used as doormats at some point in time - lazily piled into racks and bookshelves and left there to rot. Stacks upon stacks of used books not one of which looked sanitary enough to touch. One quadrant of the shop wasn't even a comic/gaming shop at all, but rather some kind of antiques department; creepy old-fashioned dolls, tea sets, and the like adorning pitted, ancient rustic furniture. And the proprietor seemed about as friendly as AIDS. He too looked to have just come in off the hay bale detail and he proceeded to ignore me completely once my transaction was complete. In fact, if he could have ignored me during the transaction, I think he would have. I should have completed the transaction and gotten out, but I just had to look around. Friends, I didn't buy that Exalted book. I rescued it.

I wish I could say such experiences as the one I had today are uncommon, but it is only the worst, not the first, of such places I have seen. Gaming stores go out of business all the time and the proprietors never seem to understand why. It is because very, very few of them are run anything like a business.

arphaxaad and donkeyjon are two men who run gaming stores and they get it right. Their shops are clean and well-lit. The merchandise is attractively displayed with care taken toward its overall condition. They greet people in a welcoming manner and treat customers well, like customers like to be treated. Sadly, they are the exception. Haybailer Man and his museum of horrors which I toured today are the rule.

I can't count the number of gaming stores I have been in which are so filthy a maggot wouldn't eat there and where the help flat-out ignores you the entire time you were there. Usually said stores are one and the same. I don't mean the help is rude. No, rude would be something. I'm talking about complete, utter denial of your existence. I've been tempted to fake a heart attack in such a store just to see what would happen.

Only slightly less prone to ignoring customers is the gaming store where you have to know the Secret Handshake in order to feel welcome. You gamers probably know the ones I mean. They're the ones where the employees will not willingly speak with or help anyone who is not one of their 7-8 miniature-painting friends who hang out there all day every day and meet there to play CHAINSAW MACHINEFIST 900,000,000,000 every Tuesday night. Another version of this store exists where it is not miniature gaming, but a set of networked computers upon which a group of scary-looking freaks play DEATHMATCH MURDER EARTHQUAKE ONLINE all day and night. This type of store is more blatantly rude than the miniature-gaming counterpart. Both are only slightly cleaner

Then the third type of gaming store I love is the one where everything seems fine until the guy behind the counter - to whom you have shown no rudeness whatsoever - assumes that because you like comic books and games that you must enjoy hearing the F-word more frequently than a groupie on the Wu-Tang Clan tour bus. Yes, I know I cuss like a nun having her asshole tongue-fucked for the very first time by a trans-gendered meth addict, but that doesn't mean I enjoy hearing the word "fuckin" used as both an adjective and an adverb to modify every word of applicable type. I think you motherfuckers fuckin know the kind of fuckin motherfuckers I'm fuckin talking about.

I would like to add that I have never been spoken to this way at Tru-Value Hardware, Chipotle's Mexican Grill, Great American Candle Company, or The Cookie Factory. I have, however, been spoken to this way more than once at gaming stores.

And all any of it does is serve to give the guys who run the GOOD stores a bad name. And I really can't stand that, because they have a hard enough time staying open as it is.
/rant

Comments

[shadowfell.livejournal.com]

Oh my gods...is this Monty's? 'Cause if it is, and it sure as hell sounds like it, welcome to the hell that I walked into when I started role-playing. This was the closest place to my house. And no, it didn't always look like that. It was always kind of...disorganized...but not until the year that the sewer back-up in the other half of the building completely flooded them out. I'm talking 'ew.' And they've never recovered from it. My friend Chris is probably the sole reason why they're still in business.

But yes. Sad, truly sad. :)

[cherith.livejournal.com]

Aha! That was my first thought too, even before I clicked on the LJ cut.

Monty's is truely a sight to behold. There's some really great bargins in there, but only if you're willing to sort through the dirt and clutter and twenty year old toy collection.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

I expected at any moment for the toy collections to give way to shrunken heads and severed hands floating in jars. The place has that kind of vibes. Hell, you could probably get a Mogwai there.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Yep. Monty's. So... did the sewer back-up come from the artificial limbs place then? Artificial limbs and raw sewage... this calls for a Silent Hill icon! I guess that explains the remark he made to me about wanting to kill his neighbors. No, I'm not kidding.

I know he probably sustained tons of damage from that event, but really so much was wrong in there that could have been fixed just by re-organizing, tidying up, cleaning things off. A few cans of pledge and a mop could do so much in that place. I really have no sympathy for him.

[cherith.livejournal.com]

The thing to know about Monty's is that the only people that keep it running during the day, is the old couple. The son, or maybe it's the grandson now, has nothing to do with keeping it up - he's probably the one selling things on eBay. It is a sad place, but it's always a sad thing when you pass a business down and the kids care nothing about it.

[shadowfell.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Don't remember the details exactly about the flood, but they lost hundreds and hundreds of comics that were in those file boxes under the shelves. Sad sad stuff.

Also, the scary guy who was there working was Dad. The guy you talked to who actually knows something about gaming stuff is his son, and he's hardly ever around. Sometimes Mom is in there too, and she's about as friendly as a snapping turtle too. And sometimes the grandkids are there too! Woo hoo! Family fun watching the tiny TV and sitting on the floor of that filthy place. *shudders*

It really is a scary, dirty, nasty place. I was amazed when I actually started going to other comic stores that were clean, well-lit, and halfway organized. Completely blew my mind that this was how stores were supposed to be. :)

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

I actually found the TV rather comforting, like an anchor to the real world. He had it tuned to NBC news. I'd have not been surprised had it been tuned to a scary Fundamentalist televangelist or open heart surgery on Discovery Health.

So it's a whole backwoods CLAN that runs this place? Jesus, it's like a comic store you'd find in a Rob Zombie movie!

[shadowfell.livejournal.com]

Yep. Been there for years and years. I honestly don't know how they are still in business, other than my friend Chris who buy entire cases of HeroClix and various other tabletop games when the new sets come out.

[arphaxaad.livejournal.com]

They used to have a store called Phoenix Games or somesuch that the Son ran. I was open in Raytown for maybe 6 months before I heard from one of his customers that it was my fault he was closin' up shop. I like to think of it as my only 'Confirmed Kill.'

[shadowfell.livejournal.com]

Definitely kudos to you, then. :)

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Since the other store is still open (God knows why,) I guess that makes it technically just a Confirmed Maiming. Good thing he knows where to get some prosthetic limbs...

[cherith.livejournal.com]

He's almost always watching some sort of sporting event or news station. Although everytime I go in there, I'm worried about knocking that little box off it's bookshelf, because it looks so periously perched up there.

The sad thing about Monty's is that if they cleaned it up and organized it, they could be making about 10 times the money they are now. They're one of the only places I can think of that sells comic books, gaming books, regular books (used) and other assorted items of geekery.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

I lived in Independence for two years and never knew this place was there. Not that I'm complaining.

[ghaidin.livejournal.com]

and are you completely sure this was not part of the creepy dream you were mentioning? because it sure sounds a lot like it may...
did any of the guys try to lock the door behind you while another unearthed some ancient axe?

I hope you didnt give out your address because when those guys said they did game they meant ... well, the other kind of game. And -as a six year old, or maybe the nun of your story- would put it... YOU'RE IT!

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Like I said, the folks on the phone sounded like they were out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Had he not been alone in there I definately wouldn't have stayed a second longer than I had to.

Makes me think of the Chinese restaurant I tried on a whim in the same part of town a few years back. Only after I got inside and placed my order did I realize that I might in fact be inside the front-business of an Asian street gang. About six really muscular Asian guys in bandanas and ripped up clothes just lounging around, staring at me with suspicion. Never in my life have I wished more fully that I'd ordered my food "to go."

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

On one of my trips to Korea, my technician and I walked into a restaurant near the phone switch wew ere working on. We had our translator with us, and she started to order, when five guys came out of the back of the restaurant wearing the same color pattern, blue jeans, and sunglasses. Our translator turned to us and said "They would like for us to leave."

Apparently, the place is a front for a local gang, and doesn't actually serve food to anyone other than gang members. They also served drugs, if we were interested, but if we didn't want drugs, then we weren't welcome.

Interesting things you learn...

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Just be glad you got the courteous gang who merely asked you to leave!

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

I assume so. His schedule stays pretty regular most of the time, it seems.

[arphaxaad.livejournal.com]

Fairly regular, but I alternate weekend nights. This week I close Saturday night.

[arphaxaad.livejournal.com]

Hadn't gotten to the other yet, don't hurt me!
heh. I'll probably bolt around 6-630..

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

I'm still going. Mel can't join us as she's going with Lesley to fabric-shop for her wedding dress, so you just come over any old time you want to and we'll head out!

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Come at 4 then, that way we can harass Mike before he leaves.

[germsama.livejournal.com]

o.O I had no idea gaming stores like that exist. I almost feel shamed as a gamer to have never experienced this insanity.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Game long enough and you will. Until then, shop only at the places you know and trust.

[darkemoone.livejournal.com]

I've experienced game stores that evil before. Thankfully, those places have gone out of business and in my area, most of the available game stores are fairly clean and nicely arranged and the people are friendly. There's this new one in particular not twenty minutes away that is just FABULOUS. Clean, well-lit, beautifully organised, and the owner is nice and knows his products.

The store owners we had around here who went out of business were the biggest jackasses ever, and shopping in their stores made me feel bad because it meant I was giving them money.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Like I said, they go out of business and never understand why. I have no pity for them.

[fadedsecret.livejournal.com]

There was a gaming store in the city I used to live in that I'd visited a few times. They are friendly, they have a nice big old cat that hangs around, but the merchandise should be displayed better. The last time I went there, they were showing an anime movie about robot girls who were like...AI or something...and they could be your girlfriend...and the one guy was trying to figure out how to turn it on to play with it...guess where he had to put his fingers. O_O

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

And usually guys like that are so socially inept that they can't understand why girls wouldn't think that anime was as cool as they do. Reminds me of Taxi Driver where Robert De Niro's idea of a date is taking the chick to a porno theatre.

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

When we opened the store, we knew that our competition would be the Ogre's Bookshelf. We also knew that there was a group of players who preferred that store because they were in the "in group."

More importantly, we knew that their store smelled, and that half of their regulars annoyed the other half to no end. So we built a store that was clean, friendly, and professional.

I have never regretted it. And now that Ogre's is out of business, I wonder if I shouldn't thank them for doing us the favor of motivating us to make a decent store.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

The only reason Ogre even survived as long as he did was because his parents owned the building he was in. But I'm glad he lasted long enough to motivate someone else to open a cool store.

Any pre-release events for Rise of the Shogun going on?

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

Yes. But I don't have the dates with me. I'll try to find the date for the tourney and let you know.

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

Ok, our Rise pre-release is on the 16th. Details:

http://www.ksgamer.com/showevent.php?eventid=279

Also, all of our L5R events are on http://www.ksgamer.com/ if you need to see them.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Last time I checked KS gamer a while back it didn't seem to have been updated in a while. I thought it died. Thanks though!

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

Don has started using it more religiously now that he's got a cushier job. :) It's still pretty much just L5R stuff, but that's what you want to see anyway. :)

[arphaxaad.livejournal.com]

Professional Curiosity: Where are you? I like to widen my network of friendly GSO's.

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

I am the co-owner of a store in Manhattan, KS called Patch and Crow's Nest. Last year, we formed a company (Evil Empire, Inc.) and bought both the original store and a store in Junction City called the Dreamcatcher.

Now, the Patch and Crow's Nest store is really the culmination of our 4 years of blood, sweat, and tears. The Dreamcatcher, sadly, is far more like the store Tyree describes. Our employee who runs it is good, but the store is frequented by, and often inundated with, smelly gamer archetypes. It's gotten so bad that I actually avoid going there.