The other day I went to my (sole) local video store, the one
from my ‘video store’ blog, run by a man I call M. It’s the first time in a
long time I’d gone to see what videos are out, but it was $1 Tuesday so I was
happy to browse. I picked some stuff up and watched them over night. Today I drove over to the video store to drop off the DVDs, and it
happened.
I walked in and dropped the DVDs into the return slot, where
M was behind the counter. As I was walking out, so was an elderly woman and
what I assume to be her two young grandchildren (neither could have been older
than seven or eight). As I was walking out, Granny, talking to the kids, said
‘Let’s go, this is a horrible place’. It was said light and matter-of-factly. Suddenly M yelled out ‘Oh shut up you bitch’.
I was tempted to go back and find out what the hell had happened, but I was halfway to my car and I’m not one to poke my nose in other people’s business. No, I much rather come up with my own theories.
Now, to put this as plainly and bluntly as I possibly can, I’m instantly and instinctively taking the side of M. My experience and various other things lead me to heavily take his side on whatever just happened. He has never been anything other than polite and pleasant, always greeting people with a smile. In fact, in the decades I’ve been going there I’ve never seen him anything other than absolutely positive. He is always smiling and happy to everyone, and I’ve seen other patrons converse with him in light, positive ways. This is actually the first time I’ve ever seen anything negative like this in his store.
Secondly, and this is where we get to behavioural forensics,
when he yelled at her it wasn’t just anger in his voice but open frustration. It
was clear that he’d been having a big problem with her for a while and that was
the final straw. Also the things he said, and how he said them, suggests that
she’d been badgering him or causing problems for a fair while. Thirdly everybody’s body language – M was at his desk
frowning, while Grandma was ferrying the two kids out, while the kids looked a
bit puzzled as to why they weren’t getting movies. Granny was the one with the
problem.
The place I live in is, essentially, a retirement community masquerading as a town. The vast majority of the population are retired or over seventy. We have several retirement homes and even a place that sells those gopher scooter things old people drive dangerously in. I’ve lived here most of my life, and from my extensive experience I’ve learnt that the elderly people who live here tend to be massive assholes. Arrogant, rude and self-important, the elderly people who live here seem to be under the impression that the world owes them a service. Apparently if you live past 65 you get to be demanding and belligerent, and have a free pass at downright insulting other people. I’ve seen old people blatantly cut massive lines at the post office (only to complain and get aggravated when somebody calls them out on it).
So the swearing situation, what caused it? I have theories
1.
She asked for a specific movie, he didn’t have
it, so she got rude
I have a shockingly large number of memories of this having
happened in stores, usually involving older men or middle aged women. Somebody
will come into the store and ask if they have a movie in. When they get told
that the store doesn’t have a specific movie (or if it’s out) suddenly,
randomly, people will become aggravated and rude, taking out their odd
frustration on the innocent workers. For some people it’s a weird sin for a
movie not to be in a movie store. I’ve heard a lot of insults being thrown at
video store clerks about not having movies, usually beginning with ‘how can you
not have it, it’s a great/popular movie’ (Video Ezy was a constant scene for
angry customers complaining).
Maybe the kids wanted a specific movie that the store didn’t
have, so Granny got angry because she couldn’t appease them.
2.
She demanded to have Cheap Tuesday prices on a
Wednesday
This one is surprisingly likely, as the elderly have a
tendency to demand things regardless of their specific criteria. For further
proof, read the second half of this blog. On Tuesday every DVD, Blu-ray and
game in the store can be rented for $1, with no limit as to how many you can
take. On an ordinary week day, weeklies are $2 (of 5 for $5) and overnighters
are $5 (or three for $10). So cheap Tuesdays are a better bet for overnighters.
I’m guessing Granny might have demanded the cheaper prices despite it not being
Tuesday, and became rude when she was told no. She probably complained about
the prices and the store as well, bcause when told no the elderly mind
instantly feels the need to cause problems.
3.
She complained that her grandkids saw
inappropriate things on the covers of horror/sexy DVDs
It might seem far-fetched, but this actually happened in a
big way in Adelaide and caused a few ridiculous laws to be passed as a result.
In South Australia, a religious politician took his six year old daughter to a
video store. She wandered into the horror section and got frightened by the
covers of the DVDs. Her moral crusader of a father didn’t just complain, he
created a bill that would require all R rated dvds to be placed in a separate
section away from any children’s eyes. The bill got passed (in South Australia
only thank Christ) so now video stores and anywhere that has DVDs have their R
rated movies placed in a separate, out of reach area. Some even have their R
rated movies out back, requiring patrons to request to view them, as though you
were asking for hardcore farm porn as opposed to the Scarface 2-disc special
edition.
Anyway, rambling aside, with two shirtless young boys let
loose in a video store, it’s likely they looked at something inappropriate and
showed it to granny, who then complained. And it’s not just complaining from
these sorts, they want to see something being done about their imagined
problems.
4.
Damaged goods, stolen movies, late fees and the
like
Maybe granny had rented movies before and not taken them
back, then refused to pay the late fees. Maybe she’d rented some movies and
broke them, cracking or scratching the discs. Maybe she had a bad history and
he refused to rent any more movies to her until she paid him back or returned
videos.
5.
General nagging and complaining
This is one that, while relatively basic and only slightly
annoying, can compound into full-blown frustration. Maybe she was just
constantly complaining about everything, insulting his store, his selection,
his prices and even him.
6.
Misbehaviour
Two shirtless little boys with a closing-in-on-eighty
grandma let loose in a video store can cause problems. I can imagine those kids
knocking over DVDs or making a mess while Granny does nothing. Maybe M
complained about the kids mucking about and Granny was rude to him.
7.
All of the above
Sometimes in your workplace you can come across a truly
horrible customer who does nothing but absolutely hassle you throughout the
day. Somebody who is arrogant, rude and, more often than not, ignorant who lets
their hot-headed stupidity and self-importance ruin your day, aggravating you
beyond belief. I’ve certainly experienced this – working in admin means having
to field calls from aggravated people who don’t understand what your company
does and lets their anger out on you. I’ve been insulted for no other reason
than somebody not knowing what they want, or an impatient git expecting the
person who answers the phone to instantly know what their problem is and have a
quick, easy fix ready for them.
So maybe Granny was doing all of the above, or at least some
of the above. Maybe she was just aggravating M beyond belief with demands,
accusations, insults and complaints until he had enough. That was certainly
what his outburst sounded like, her final insult of ‘this is a horrible place’
being the final straw.
~
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this sort of thing
happen at a store here. I witnessed a similar situation at my local Chinese
restaurant maybe six or seven years ago. The Chinese place is run by a Chinese
family, with the matriarch running the front. She speaks broken English, but
she’s so positive and pleasant (if a little loud)The front of the store had a glass window that advertised ‘Business Lunches’ at shockingly cheap prices. This was sort of like a banquet deal – if you came as a group (specifically a business group, they were trying to draw in the work lunch crowds) you’d pay a cheaper price. This deal, however, had not been running for many many years. They no longer did the business lunch deals (presumably because no businessmen/women would go into town for lunch since it’s so dire). Since the advertising was drawn onto the glass out the front, they couldn’t remove it, so they wrote on the glass that the deals no longer existed. While for most people this would be clear as day, for the octogenarian folk this apparently was easy to misconstrue.
I once went to get takeaway there at lunch. In front of me
were an elderly couple and a kid. Grandma and Grandpa, with their young (six or
seven) granddaughter, were trying to get the business lunch deal, despite the
deal being clearly non-existent. But boy did they fucking try. They started
complaining, started yelling and were insulting the lady who was struggling,
with her limited English and thick accent, to get her point across; ‘The deals
no longer exist and you can’t have them’. Grandpa, the one doing the bulk of
the arguing, had the entirety of his case resting on the ‘it was written on the
glass, therefore you need to give me that price’. He even started to bring up
bullshit, non-existent laws about shopfront advertising in an attempt to scare
her into complying. Didn’t work (old Asian ladies are tough man). The little
girl was complaining about her tummy rumbling, Grandma acted like this was
somehow the Chinese lady’s fault and Grandpa, as his final petty revenge,
refused to leave until he got what he wanted, essentially organising a three
person sit-in. I had to leave the restaurant (kinda hard to put an order in
when there’s an angry old guy in the way) and came back about ten minutes
later. The elderly folk were finally gone, and they didn’t get their food,
which is something I took immense personal delight in.
A short time later the Chinese folks, to make things clearer
to people with cataracts, used black paint to scour over the ‘Business Lunch’
part of the glass, so now there’s a patch of black on their storefront. 
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