"excuse me sir but WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY SHOP?"

I always imagine Games Workshop to be the exact opposite of the thread title, it's more like "join us, my precious"

which is what i was told whilst browsing through some records. i was not to lift the records out of the crate, i was to read the handwritten labels..

me: do you have this on CD?

Gord is sometimes a cockfarmer

if i won the lottery i would hire minibuses full of pensioners to go to such stores and pester the assistants with confused requests for all the wrong kinds of records

! AHA - WELCOME BACK KIM !

ilx - so high, so wide, so deep....

on castle street right by where manser's antique shop used to be??

but yes, that is a steep one, just down from (and opposite) the castle; just down from (and opposite) the old school/library (is this called the "darwin centre" now?), and just up from the station

I already do this, for free!

Didn't think that was allowed in public.

Me: why do you need a camel pack? Isn't it just extra weight? I mean, it's not as if you're going to die of thirst in england, is it?
bikie: I need it for downhill
me: that dual suspension outfit, i mean it juat makes the bike heavier, and saps all yer pedal power, right?
bikie: I need it for downhill
etc, etc.

to be honest, i possibly have driven such people away w/my snotty attitude. i prefer road racers, who are really hardcore, and recumbent riders, who are the 1337 of the cycling world.

Haha, I never thought that League Of Gentlemen skit was based on reality that closely.

Alternately there's the class as opposed to hipness issue, in which case usually they just follow you around the store, ask what you want in really condescending tones, etc. (I get the sense from this thread that US shop-people are just way more subtle and indirect about this stuff than in the UK!)

Depends where the shop is: if tis in Beverly Hills, or the like, the assistants won't care too much: another, richer customer will be along in a minute.

WHY DO I KNOW THIS

it is a beached hipster thing of course: "you do not understand THE CULTURAL DEPTHS OF MY PRODUCT — i wd rather be poor than degrade the [whatever] that is all to me..."

english tourist: ooo, blimey, i was in the gap, and this shop assistant would not stop being nice to me, it's was 'orrible.

english tourist 2: did you watch your 'andbag, gladys?

english tourist: i sure did. it was an 'orrible experience. i just left the shop.

and quite right too i mean just who do we think we are

hunleash the trading standards officahs

ms doom-e: it's very very very old.

*uncomfortable silence*

pete townsend walks out of the shop.

(Or - even better).
This is a library - not a bookshop.

see, i kind of like the shops Snowy Mann refers to, surely they are implacable bastions against the vaunting globalisation of turbo-capitalism (ie buying and selling is kept strictly in thrall to the social relationship!!)

ts:
'my money is as good as anyone else's'
vs
'no it isn't' or 'this isn't just about money'

it may be a consequence of the consumerisation of our consciousness, but if someone opens a shop there is an implicit contract that if you have the money to buy it they will sell it to you (although they are under no legal obligation to do so, i believe*)
if someone decides you can't have it, even though you have the correct change and have not been a rude or a 'difficult customer', it is hard to see how it is based on anything other than snap decisions based on your looks/accent/race/nationality, and snap decisions like that are almost by definition some kind of prejudice

for these kind of shops in particular - it's not like the interests/aesthetics involved 'ought' to be limited to a particular 'class' of person - to the extent that they are it is a self-sustaining loop caused by most proprieters being of this type

(on the other hand from their pov it may be like:
'i am also a proper olde english eccentric who knows about these things and thus suitable for your wares'
vs.
'hey this shop is WEIRD - i bet you don't have to be MAD to shop here......but it HELPS!')

*(though i imagine a shop that consistently refused to sell its goods to some particular ethnic group, say, could be found guilty of breaching the race discriminations act?)

i think this thread touches on the great big issue in 'aesthetic artefacts for sale' (eg music) - once you start selling it, does it become 'devalued'? is yr claim to 'aesthetic purpose' somehow fucked? or is it ok when you only sell it to the 'right ppl'?

(its a kind of lowest common denominator argument i don't like that some ppl will use against 'preciousness' => 'ha yr band SELL stuff just like any chart-pop shower so they are just the same in the end')

knowing to expect nastiness, tracer hand arrives round the side with a receipt entitling him to ten 32" lengths of 2x4. he holds up receipt, a chipper grin enforced on face, and toodles: "i've got something for you!"

wary lumberman gets off milk crate and says "you ain't got NOTHIN for ME"

tracer works through the ramifications of this reponse and decides lumberman means that he's got the wood, not me, and while this is a point of dubious utility just now, it is undeniable, so tracer shrugs off the aggro fuckhead's attitude, hands over reciept, and says "is it alright if i come back in half an hour to pick this up?" to which lumberman deliciously replies "you can do WHATEVER YOU WANT."

*insert shitty 'got the wood' joke here*