Retail humor runs rampant in every store we visit

True, most retail humor in stores is unintentional...which makes it no less amusing. For example:

--The big box store in Philadelphia where the restroom signs had been put on the wrong doors. What was funniest wasn't even the women who were shocked to find standup facilities and only one separate stall in their space.

What WAS hilarious was the fact that it took Management more than three months to figure it out and get the signs changed.

--The outlet receiving our Retail Humor Of The Year Award: A music store in a small Montana town that advertised a new release by legend Eric Clapton as a release by Eric Clapper. These folks do have their own sense of humor: The Clapper sign was later replaced by one that shouted, If You Ain't Country, We Don't Know WHO you are!

That sign, my Montana friends tell me, is still in place.

One of those friends who actually worked IN that exact store wrote his own bit of poetic humor describing what happened. He did want his writing published but did NOT want his name known,and we respect that. All OTHER names, he assures us, have been eliminated to protect the writer.

WHO You Are
by Anonymous

I was working all one summer
One year left in school
Full time in a music store
Oh man I was cool
Picking and a-grinning
On my Ibanez guitar
Making girlies drool
I was their wish upon a star

My boss he was a cowboy
Not the brightest in the land
A simple three chord runaround
Was all he'd ever planned
He majored not in English
And the music that he knew
Was limited to Country
And even then a simple few

One night we had an awesome gig
To rival ZZ Top
My mind was still on picking
When I opened up the shop
A sign right in the window
Stopped me where I stood
It said Eric Clapper's new release
Was really pretty good

When Clapton is your idol
Better than you'll ever be
That hits you like a poison pie
Right in the face, you see
But how to change the window
Without letting Boss Man know
When you really need the job you've got
And don't want to let it go?

Then I had an inspiration
The new sign was up to par
It said, If You Ain't Country
We Don't Know WHO You Are!
When the owner came in later
And asked me what I knowed
I told him Clapton's publicist
Had seen us from the road

The man had been quite livid
Said the new sign had to be
Unless we wanted lawsuits
From sea to shining sea
Now most of them are Country
In this tiny little town
And that sign will stay forever
'Cause they're afraid to take it down

=================================================================

Retail humor at its best. My anonymous friend swears the story is true and that the sign is still prominently displayed in the storefront window even today. He feels the most amazing part of it all was that no one in the town, not even his boss, questioned the likelihood of Eric Clapton's publicist coming through on a little traveled Montana two-lane highway.

Not that he still works there; he's long since graduated from both retail humor and high school. Yes, he went on to greater things.

No, he's not the lead picker he dreamed of being, but he is writing songs for a living, working the arrangements out on the same Ibanez guitar he received as a graduation present from his longtime employer.

You couldn't make up a story like that.

Now...if I can figure out how to persuade Pam to let me retail that blue glass botle I got from Mile High FLea Market instead of leaving it there on the table as a centerpiece...hmmmm....

Thanks for reading,

Fred

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