Advice, Dog

It had been such a long time since one particular gentleman professed words of boundless wisdom at Fernando. Like all good things, this came to an end on one afternoon not long after opening.

“I see you've got some boxes there,” he says.

Fernando looks over his shoulder and into his office, where large boxes crammed full of VHS tapes lay. He was finally ridding his inventory of the outdated technology, simultaneously freeing up much-needed shelf space and lowering his property tax burden (for the laws of his state allow for tax levies on inventory kept at a business). Someone was coming by later that evening to pick up the boxes and rather than waste time and energy hauling them into the back room only to haul them back out, he just stacked them in a corner of the office until she could arrive to relieve him.

“Yeah, I'm clearing out some space,” Fernando says.

“What are you gonna do with them all? Sell 'em?”

“That's the plan.”

“I don't know if anybody would buy them because nobody really uses the players anymore. You should bring them up to the Sound Shelf and maybe you'll get your money's worth.”

“Actually, someone's coming by later today to take them. That's why they're cluttering up my office.”

“Oh. Well I don't know if that is better for you because you might get a better price up there. How much you selling them for?”

“I'm not concerned about getting the highest price; I just want to get rid of them. Besides, I'd rather they go to one of my customers rather than one of my competitors, oblique as the overlap between our respective businesses may be.”

“I see,” he says. “What are you gonna do with all the empty space then?”

“Use it. New movies keep being released and I will need to put them somewhere.”

“Oh.” His view rotates around Fernando's lobby, though he does not look at anything in particular. “Well, have a good day.”

“You too.”