Recursive Marketing

A pair of young ladies enter the store one evening. One of them drops off some movies she'd rented the day before and the two of them fan out into the store to peruse Fernando's wares. They select four tags and bring them up to the counter.

It being part of Fernando's job to engage in merry banter with his customers, he does precisely that with them. The topics include Fernando's age and how he looks “about forty,” and how the Ice Age movies might be best served by stopping to make more of them before they suffer the fate of Land Before Time. In the midst of this conversation, one of the girls peers into the office and asks, “What paper are you writing back there?”

“Paper?” Fernando looks over his shoulder at his monitor, where Open Office is up for all the world to see and his Chronicles are spread over the LCD screen. He was putting finishing touches on another of his tales when the girls entered. “I haven't written a paper in like a decade.”

After it dawns that his answer is enough of a stretch as to constitute an outright lie, Fernando amends his response, “Okay, maybe six years. Since I graduated from college, anyway.”

“Oh, so what is it then?” she asks. “I'm sorry, I'm just nosy.”

“Oh, it's nothing. Just a thing for my weblog.”

“You have a weblog? What's it about?”

“The crazy things I experience on a frequent basis. You wouldn't believe some of the people I deal with.”

“You should give me the address so I can check it out. Maybe I'll get a couple laughs out of it.”

“More than a couple, I hope,” Fernando answers as he jots down the website for her. “I like to believe I'm wittier than that. That said, not all of the stories are bad ones.”

The second girl chimes in at this point. “Do you have many video games here for newer systems?”

“Uh...just some stuff for the X360. Nothing too new.”

“Do you have Dirt or Skate?”

“W-what? Are...are those drugs?”

The girls look at Fernando, who looks at the girls. Then the second girl breaks out in laughter. “They're games! Oh my god, 'Are they drugs?'”

“Okay, you know how I just said that not all the stories are bad ones? Stuff like this, where I look dumb, these get put up too.”

So cheers, ladies!