snap judgments

Everyone remember that comics come in this week on Thursday due to Memorial Day?

Didn’t think so.  I forgot up until Monday, myself.  But please, do go visit anyway.  Your local comic shop is going to have plenty of people poking their head in, looking at the clerks, and then zipping out the moment they here there’s no new books.  Some stores have sales on these kinds of days, just sayin’.

But…. how can I put this?  Don’t stay too long?

Being a little pop culture mecca in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara, our customers are diverse and knowledgable on all sorts of cool topics, from movies to video games, RPG systems and the far reaches of fandom.  Some store so much of this knowledge they wear it like a badge of honor, proudly displaying their latest gossip on Dark Knight casting rumors or in-dept study of Drow fighting techniques like bright plumage or great crest ridges in order to show thier status.

They are the info geeks.   People for whom knowing all of this is almost as good or even better than how much they enjoy the topic of discussion.

Personally, I love these guys.  How else am I to learn what movie is set to open at what theater or which one of the Legion of Super-Heroes can bench the most weight?  I too, am a bit of an info geek, rather proud of my X-Men History lore and my depth of TP knowledge in our store.  The thing is, I can only love them FOR SO LONG.

Guy came in yesterday, he’s a regular… but I cannot remember the last time I actually sold him anything.  He chatted us up in the store for over an hour and a half, talking about this movie to come out, what director is doing what, where the last X-Men failed, the love letter to Donner’s Superman that Superman Returns was… it didn’t stop until the enabling employee went on lunch, I averted my gaze and the head manager was back from his break.  Upon leaving, he also did that multiple goodbye thing where he’s not really gone until you present eye contact and clearly state a concluding remark.

An hour and a half.  Not even the act of helping other customers would sway his words.  He was respectful, so I was in return by not shouting “OH FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO YOU ANYMORE!”  And, the most damning of all, I fell for it.  I was an enabler; he asked me about going to the Star Wars: Celebration IV con this last weekend and I answered and we got into a discussion about Star Wars and Star Trek.  As nerdcore as I am, I cannot resist the lure of talking Trek.  I too wanted to display my plumage and get acknowledgment for all of my well formed opinions.  I lured him in and the next thing you know, it’s an hour and a half later and I’m envying the guy going on lunch because he’s escaping.

So, I thought about it, and on slow days (and I’m talking SLOW, the empty sort of days where you can run through the store waving your hands in the air and go ‘Woo woo woo woo!’), I thik I can take an info geek for about…  a half an hour.   The length fo a good sitcom.  After that half hour mark, signs of wear show.  And no matter what, after an hour has passed, it’s time to go.  If you haven’t bought anything, you’re not digging through back issues, you’re not watching a movie, go home.  Come back and regale us with tales of when you used to read comics another day.

If we have customers?  Ten minutes, tops.  I got stuff to do, sir.

This may seem harsh, but your millage may vary.