A forty-something year old man who is missing half his teeth enters the Dominion one Saturday afternoon. He is utterly unfamiliar. “You got the other Walking Tall?” he asks. By this Fernando assumes he refers to the sequel that has none of the actors from the original film.
“Indeed I do. Let me just take a look in my database for where it's hiding,” answers Fernando. So he enters his Open Office database and does a search for “Walking Tall.”
As the computer begins sifting through over two thousand entries, the man pounds on the counter with a fist and demands, “What's taking so long?”
“It's still searching,” says Fernando. “There are a lot of movies to parse.”
“Well, goddamn. Tell it to hurry up, buddy boy!”
Fernando makes a displeased face in the computer's direction at being called “buddy boy.” A few moments later, the man continues his pounding and shouts, “Goddamn, I could have found this thing by now! What kinda people hire you, buddy boy?” Midway through his rant, the computer pops up a result. Maybe ten seconds have elapsed since Fernando struck CTRL+F.
Now Fernando turns from the screen having decided missing out on a two dollar rental will be worth it to drive away an unapologetic asshole. Plus, he's called Fernando “buddy boy” twice now. “1218.”
“What?” asks the interloper in dull confusion.
Fernando tilts his head towards the floor where the thousands of cases loom from their places in genre-sorted shelves. “The number's 1218. I'm sure you can take it from here.”
The man's face assumes the look of a thundercloud. “I don't know why your parents let you work here for them. They'll be getting words from me come Monday.”
Fernando grins not unlike a fox locked overnight in a henhouse. Some people remain irrevocably behind the times. “Please do. I'm positive they'll get a kick out of it.”
The guy grumbles some maybe-words rendered even more unintelligible by his lack of dentition and storms out.
Never did come in on Monday like he promised. So sad. He probably has late fees, too.
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