Socratic Methods

Fernando is enjoying a splendid dinner one evening when a large group of schoolkids enters the store, led by the son of one of Fernando's regulars. All of them are carrying cups of sodey pop from the nearby gas station and some of them have candy bars they munch upon. One of the members of this gaggle who lacks such solid sustenance sniffs audibly. “What're you eating there?” he asks.

“Asopao de pollo,” Fernando responds after clearing his mouth of food.

“Asa-what-what?” the lad repeats.

“Asopao de pollo. It's a Puerto Rican chicken dish with rice, hot peppers, tomatoes, oregano, and paprika. Quite delectable.”

“It smells good.”

“It is good. How can I help you gents tonight?”

The young man Fernando recognizes pipes up. “What's a good funny movie?”

Fernando rises from his seat and marches to the comedy section, the boys trailing him. “That depends on what you personally find humorous. My opinion on the subject very well could be different from your guys'. Point out a movie you guys have already seen and we'll go from there.”

The group of five breaks into debate for a short while and the film they decide upon at the end as their epitome of comedy is Zombieland.

“Is it the zombies that do it for you guys or something unrelated to zombies?”

Fernando is answered with echoed cries of “the zombies.”

Fernando smiles. “Great. Howsabout Shaun of the Dead? Zombies, comedy, Simon Pegg. Pretty fine movie overall.” The five young men agree with Fernando's suggestion, but a small argument breaks out again. Apparently some of their number want a horror movie.

“Well, this one's only two bucks. I'm sure you guys could fit another older horror flick in if you split the cost among the five of you. Plus I actually think you've got a free one coming, so you could get another one on top of that if you wanted something else.”

The young men begin gibbering and writhing at this news. “Oh, man! We have like ten bucks!” they shout before splitting up and combing the store for rental tags. Fernando returns to his seat as they haggle among themselves as to which ones they'll be keeping.

They eventually decide to go with “only” four titles. One was free, but it's still all good.

Price Wars

Some older guy Fernando has never seen before pulls up in a beat-up old white sedan. “Hey, guy, you got movies for sale?” he asks.

“Yessir I do, on the rack right behind you. Feel free to help yourself,” Fernando answers.

“How much are they?”

“Eight bucks apiece, or three for twenty.”

“Eight bucks? That's too much, guy.”

“Well, I do also have a box of movies here for four apiece, but they're all older titles.”

The old guy stumps over to Fernando's Adopt-A-Movie box and paws through it, frowning and muttering to himself. “Eight bucks. Way to high. Ain't paying eight bucks.” The guy looks up and fixes a death glare on Fernando. “Guy, you ain't getting me to buy nothing with those prices.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.,” says Fernando. “But I tend not to put effort into changing peoples' minds when they've already made them up. You seem to think my prices are too high and nothing I say or do will change that.”

“Sell this to me for four bucks,” says the man, picking up a copy of Battle: Los Angeles.

Fernando raises his eyebrows. “I'm not seeing the potential upside to that.”

“I don't want to buy it for eight. I want to buy it for four, like those other ones.”

“Those other ones didn't come out less than two months ago. Therein lies difference in pricing.”

“Then I ain't buying it!” the man shouts, throwing the case back on the sales rack.

Fernando shrugs. “Alright, then. Have a good day.” He returns to his seat.

The old guy mumbles unflattering things about Fernando for a short while longer before storming out.

That'll Show Him

-Ring ring ring-

Fernando peers at the caller ID, which reads “OUT OF STATE.” This will be fun.

“Hello, Dominion of Movies?”

“Yeah, I'd like to speak with someone in charge there about your internet and phone service.”

“Oh, alright. Well, I'm happy to tell you that I'm rather content with the service I'm receiving regarding those services at the moment, so I'm uncertain there is any service you could offer me regarding the services you seek to provide. So, I bid you a good day--”

“Wait! Listen for just one second!”

There is a short, stunned silence. The man on the other attempts to fill it with sales bullshit when Fernando interjects, “Did you just talk over me?”

“Sir, I didn't mean--”

“Because that's real professional, you know. Your odds of me signing onto your company's services just got even smaller. I am irked, sir, and highly so, to the degree that I retract my earlier statement wishing you a good day.”

Fernando then hangs up while the man on the other end blathers some nonsense words.

On Metaphysical Ontology

Fernando is crabby one evening because a man, a woman, and their shirtless, shoeless offspring, around age 8 or so, are in the store. The children are galumphing about and being generally loud and annoying pains while the parents do everything in their power to avoid controlling their brood. So, typical day at the Dominion.

One of the two children is being especially bothersome in that he pauses in his labors of rambunction to ask Fernando seemingly random questions. Now, Fernando has nothing against ingraining his worldly knowledge upon the eager minds of inquisitive children, but the questions have to at least be good ones. In this case, Fernando's interactions with the chaos spawn are somewhat clipped by his displeasure.

At one juncture the boy looks up at a wall, where a framed Avatar poster looms, quite visible. He shrieks in glee and runs up to Fernando and points over his shoulder and shouts, “WHAT'S THAT?”

“That...is a poster.”

“WHY?”

The kid probably intended the question to be of the “Why is it there?” sort. But Fernando was already vexed and so he took the child's query at face value. “Well, there are actually a number of schools of thought on that one. The most old-school holds that there is some metaphysical ideal, some 'posterness,' that is possessed by all posters which is somehow transferred to our physical world and allows us to recognize posters for what they are. But that old Platonic ideal chestnut requires, as I said, a metaphysical construct of 'posterness' and applying Occam's razor suggests that there is some other--”

By this point the child had wandered off with a rather dazed look on his face. Fernando's droning monologue actually seemed to quell the boy's miscreant leanings for the time being, though his sibling continued to cavort about the store. But Fernando shall take what small wins he can, as they are few and far between.

Plus it was good to get practical use out of those college courses.

Unsolved Mysteries

-Ring ring ring-

“Hello, Dominion of Movies.”

“Yeah, do you have Escanaba in da Moonlight?”

“Hang on, let me check....”

-Click-

“Um...hello? Hello?”

She never called back.

Mix-and-Match Critter

A couple of people Fernando had never seen before come into the store. The male half is one of those ratty-looking guys who enjoys placing an abundance of metal bits in his head while the female half is one of those Fernando-aged people who nonetheless look far older than their years.

They browse about and eventually decide on Season of the Witch. The guy plucks the tag and brings it to the counter.

“This is that one with the ghost-devil-demon-zombie-monster, right?”

Holy 3E added templates, Vecna! “Uh, yes,” answers Fernando, since the man is partially right and Fernando didn't feel like arguing the point. “Can I get your name?”

“Bobby Strong.”

“Do you have an account here?”

“Yeah, I should. Haven't been here in three years or something.”

Fernando takes a gander at his records and, hey, what do you know? “It seems you have some late fees, actually. Nineteen dollars, back from '06. Did you want to pay them off?”

“Uh...do I have to?”

“Well, you haven't been to the store in five years and you racked up nineteen bucks before. Put down say six bucks and we can trickle the rest out no problem.”

Instead of bitching and getting upset like the usual ornery customer, he puts down ten dollars upon the late fee. Marvelous!

Oh, except for the fact that the movie is now sort of...absent. Shame on you! That's what you get for seeing goodness in people, Fernando H. Stevens!

Language Games

A guy who rented Source Code the previous day returns the film. “I don't know why I rented this thing,” he gripes at Fernando, “I couldn't understand a damn thing and had no idea what's going on. You shouldn't need to know fucking physics to watch a movie.”

“Er. Not really sure how this one has much to do with physics, per se. It's more an exploration of the philosophy of mind and philosophy of time, specifically with regards to parallel universes and the ability to influence events in them. Really, though, I don't think one could call a universe 'parallel' to another if it's capable of being influenced, or even really detected. Parallel lines never cross, so neither, strictly speaking, should parallel universes. 'Tangential universes' might be a better term to use in this case.”

This random train of thought Fernando has embarked upon seems to have confused the man. “I don't know why you gotta use those big words! They don't tell me anything! I don't know what you're talking about!”

“I don't think the words are that complicated. The concepts underlying them in the particular ways I used them, maybe, but the words themselves are pretty...um...self-explanatory. 'Parallel' means what it almost always does. 'Tangential' might be a bit more tricksy because it's not something you run across every day, but even then I think context should make it clear that the word is being used in contrast to 'parallel' and so means something else.”

“You could use smaller ones!”

“Yeah, I probably could. But that would obfuscate some of the clarity of meaning I strive to get across. You don't use the words 'ran fast' when the word 'sprinted' gets the idea across better and create a more accurate mental picture.”

“Whatever, man. Shit's not for me.” And he leaves.

Fernando was just attempting to enlighten the gent on precision in language. It is unfortunate that one might possess the ability to encourage an equine in the direction of an aqueous solution but find oneself bereft of the means to coerce it to partake.