Foolery

Tom Foolery Stories: Overheard

Customers say the darnedest things, don't they?  If you've ever waited tables, worked retail, or worked anywhere you may have come into contact with human beings, you know just what I mean.  (Archaeologists, all-night lab techs and Antarctic explorers, you may have trouble understanding the post.  You are excused.)

The following items were taken from my recently rediscovered Bizarre Request Archives from my old gift store, Tom Foolery.  If you want to read more, in no particular order, check here and here.  These particular gems were overheard by my staff or me, as spoken, word for word, by customers.

#30  Customer points to a Raiders wind sock and says, "Look, a Raiders backpack!"

For very tiny people, apparently.

#39  Gentleman reads out loud Butthead hat as "Butterhead," then comments it would be a great golf cap. [The Butthead caps were made out of little boys brightly-dyed tighty-whities.  I'm not sure the country club would approve.]

(Photo stolen from these guys)

#44  Customer calls the cedar eggs "potatoes."

#87  Kristin shows wallets to an older couple.  The man is holding a Bosca Old Leather black wallet.  His wife says, "You don't want a plastic wallet," referring to the shiny Bosca.  Kristin says it is a high-polished Italian leather; the wife comments, "They don't have no cows in Italy!"  Kristin stops explaining.

#91  "Look, dehydrated spiders!"

Whaaaaa?

#95  Daughter:  "Hey, Mom, look -- glow-in-the-dark condoms!"
Mom, dead serious:  "What, for black people?"
Daughter:  "No, Mom!"

#99  Two high school girls who could barely read, reading the buttons aloud:  "I've got gas so bad I had to get a . . . cannery [canary]."

#103  "BRAIN chimes?  Oh, RAIN chimes."
 
(Photo stolen from these guys)

#108  Teenage girl to mother, discussing glow-in-the-dark condoms: "Did you know the lubrication glows, too, and that his BLANK still glows a couple days later?  It's a rumor around school."
Mother:  "No way."

#135  Lady misreads "I'm not aging I'm MARINATING" apron as "I'm not aging I'm URINATING."

(Photo stolen from these guys)

#137  Lady looking at gargoyle figurines:  "Oh, The Hobbit.  Isn't this The Hobbit?  You know, by J.J. Tolkien?"

(Photo stolen from this site)

#141  Mother and daughter, 30s and 50s, shopping for birthday gifts.  Daughter picks up a book, laughs knowingly, and reads, "STOP THE AGGING."  Mother corrects her, "AGING."

#142  A guy sees weather glass barometer hanging on the wall and says, "Lookit that teapot."

(Photo stolen from this site)

#143  "Now I know where to go to find the stuff I don't know where to go to find."

That's the idea!  Now go forth and spread the good word, okay?

Tom Foolery Stories: What The . . .?

If you've never been into Tom Foolery -- the store that was mine for ten years, or the new version that the original owners have reopened -- in Chico, California, you have been missing out.  It was/is a somewhat indescribable wonder; a place where people would go when they couldn't find something anywhere else.  My inability to get people to come to Tom Foolery FIRST instead of LAST was not helpful in keeping the store afloat in a failing mall. 

In any case, it was a bit like searching through your wacky Aunt Marion's trunk in the attic, only among the beautiful leather goods and chess sets you'd find Fart Books . . .

 
(Photo stolen from these guys)

. . . and Billy-Bob Teeth.

(Photo stolen from these guys)

Here are some more wacky items my customers asked for at Tom Foolery.  This particular group is just a bunch of random weirdness that probably existed only in the minds of some rather eccentric shoppers.  To read more Tom Foolery stories start here, and for the first dramatic reading from the Bizarre Request Archives, click here.

#2  a parmesan cheese shaker in the shape of a rat -- the item that first begged to be written down and was THE one that got us to start an archive.

#21  rubber duck tie tack

#38  infant-sized jock straps (there are a couple of people to whom I would have LOVED to present a baby jock)

#64  a mug that says World's Greatest Piece of Ass -- "You don't?!"

#74  "little mosquitos that you could stick on your face or arms or something"

#98  toilet paper made out of hay

(Photo stolen from this site)

#118.  "TV switcher that goes through walls"

#127  burping mug

#144  Gran Marnier-flavored toothpaste

#148  silver frame shaped like a piece of toast

#160  vasectomy gifts

#174  an octopus bank.  "Do you know where I can get one?  Thought sure you'd have them; it just made so much sense, ya know?"

Yeah, I know.

(Photo stolen from these guys)

Tom Foolery Stories: The Archives

GUESS WHAT!

No, not that.

No, I found what can only be described as the origin of my blog!  It's a small autograph book in garish teenage girl-colors, labeled (by Yours Truly)

TOM FOOLERY BIZARRE REQUEST
(and other stupid remarks) ARCHIVES

I knew it existed, it was just busy existing in another quadrant of my universe, also known as A Never-Unpacked Grocery Sack From 2001.  It's a little book we used to record crazy stuff for posterity at my store, Tom Foolery, when it was my store, back in the '90s.  When people asked for crazy stuff, out came the archives (on the sly so we didn't embarrass anyone).  I just realized tonight that it was the precursor to my blog -- a journal of the craziness foisted upon me by customers and other undocumented life forms.

There are more than 180 entries, and most of them are funny.  I thought maybe I'd hit the highlights for you, from time to time, when I don't have anything relevant to say.

Here are a few of the conversations I had with customers.  Sometimes you've just gotta walk away, shaking your head.  I know that now.  Then?  Not so much.  I engaged Every. Time.  And here's proof:

(Photo stolen from these guys)

#57.  A guy comes in looking scuzzy, carrying an orange, rolled-up flag or wind sail.  Stops at fortune cookie condoms.  "What are these?"
Explanation.  "Are they edible?"
Laurie: "Maybe, I don't know."
Scumbucket:  "I like the mint-flavored ones.  Actually, I like it better without the condom.  Tastes all sweet and salty.  Ya ever heard of the free lunch program at the Children's Learning Center?  Ya ever heard of John Long?"
Laurie:  "Okay, that's enough."
Dirtbag:  "How much for the whole place?  I'm serious."
Laurie:  "It's not for sale."
Scuzzball:  "Hmph.  Whatever."  And walks out.

#66.  Thomas, one of our collection of sweet crazies, buys his third jar of Glo-Dough in a week because it's an effective rain-maker.  "Just a li'l piece made it get all cloudy!"
"Use it wisely," said I.

(Photo stolen from these guys)

#72.  "Anything for mailmen?"
"No, sorry.
"Okay then, how about anything for someone having a kidney operation?"
"No."
"It's hard to find anything kidney."
I wish I had said that.

(Drawing stolen from these guys)

#86.  A woman and her family came into the store; she was carrying a cat.
(Laurie) "I'm sorry, Ma'am, but I can't allow cats in the store," very friendly and apologetically.
She glares and turns on her heel.  "Well, if he's not welcome then neither are we."

#123.  Someone came in and asked if we had "penis suckers."
Laurie:  "No, but that's my brother's nickname, though."

Yes way.

#132.  Man:  "We have a set of double-six dominos that we got here over 40 years ago."
Laurie:  "Well, Tom Foolery has been here only 10 1/2 years."
Man:  "Yes, but whether you know it or not, there has been a store like this, in this spot, for YEARS."
Laurie:  "Before we were here, it was a mother-to-be store, and before that it was a smoke shop."
Man:  "Well, I'm talking about before you were BORN."
The mall was only 28 years old at that moment; before that it was an orchard.

(Photo stolen from these guys)

#146.  A man comes in to order a murder mystery game, then thinks better of it.  "I don't know if I should even do this.  My girlfriend bit me last night.  I'm waiting for a prescription at Walgreens.  Bit almost down to the bone.  I don't know how much longer we'll be together.  I didn't deserve it, by the way.  I was just holding her wrists, like this, and she bit me."

(Photo stolen from these guys)

#149.  Big Mike, whose IQ is about 50, maybe, came in to ask, "'Scuse me, um, it was my 24th birthday last Thursday, and, um, do you have any surprises for me?"
Laurie:  "I'm not sure I understand . . . what kind of surprise do you mean?"
Mike:  "Like, a CD."
I gave him a chocolate coin.

(Photo stolen from this site)

#164.  A lady customer, watching me wrap:  "You do a beautiful bow job!"

(Photo stolen from these guys)

#167.  An elderly woman asked, "Do you keep a book of the things people say in the store?"

No.  No, we don't.

PROMPTuesday: It Was Not To Be

A story. Tell you a story? I do that too much, I'm pretty sure. Still, the lovely and talented San Diego Momma has an ongoing series she calls PROMPTuesday, in which she provides a topic or some other writerly directive, and then encourages people to give it a shot, and today's PROMPTuesday was entitled Tell Us A Story.

Telling someone like me to "tell me a story," well, that's just inviting disaster.

Here goes.

Katherine was young. Young and pretty. Young and pretty and a walking cultural wasteland. But that's not why I hired her. I hired Katherine because she was Willa's best friend, and Willa already worked for me, and I needed a warm body to help me during my Christmas retail season. Same reason any college freshman ever gets hired.

Katherine was the living breathing opposite of Donald, whom I also hired that season: while Katherine flounced into a room, Donald glided. Questions were irritants to Katherine, but were puzzles for Donald to solve later. Katherine listened to rap and hip hop; Donald played the bagpipes, most likely while wearing a kilt, although I really didn't want to know. Katherine laughed loudly and easily; Donald laughed rarely, and when he did, it sounded like steam escaping from a sauce pan.

So, of course, Donald instantly fell in love with Katherine, who was oblivious to the tall young blonde man's ardor. I saw it immediately, however, and worried that such a union was ill-advised, and tried not to let their work schedules overlap much; this proved difficult in a 1225 square foot gift shop.

Donald was not shy with the rest of our crew about his love for the fair Katherine, who, though adorable, snorted when she laughed and walked rather like a sumo wrestler. He would sigh pointedly and ask of no one in particular, "Isn't she lovely?" I worried that Katherine was not bright enough for Donald, and that Donald was far too artsy for such a straight-up California girl. Nothing good comes from meddling, and I know that now.

A breathless Katherine blew into the store for her afternoon shift one Saturday. She had a story to tell.

"You'll NEVER guess!" she began, and she was right. "I was downtown? in the park? with my friend Amy? and, and, and I was walking through those big trees?"

"The sycamores."

"Yeah, so and then? I heard this sound? It was . . . it was like . . ." Katherine faltered as she sought words outside of her vernacular. "It was . . . the most HATEFUL sound I've ever heard!"

"Huh."

"I KNOW! And I said? to Amy? 'What on EARTH is that HATEFUL sound?!' And Amy? said, 'I dunno!' And OH MY GOD, it was HATEFUL!"

"Did you find out what the sound was?" I asked.

"Yeah!"

Tick.

Tick.

TICK.

"Well, what was it?" I asked, annoyed that this lovely Barbie doll could actually pique my interest.

"It was . . . DONALD! Sitting behind a tree, playing some foul musical instrument!"

Katherine had no vocabulary for "bagpipes."

(Photo stolen from this site)

The romance was over before it began.

Hold My Calls

This is me circa 1994.  It was taken for a Tom Foolery ad by Rudy Giscombe (at that time a photographer for the local weekly newspaper, the Chico News & Review, that I advertised in).  Rudy can make anyone smile, and he always made me laugh, which was necessary because I HATE having my picture taken.



Actually, I hate having my picture taken only once, when something like 50-60 shots are necessary to get one decent one.  Nobody ever has the time, patience, or reason to take 50-60 pictures of me, therefore they stop at one.  And that one always stinks.

I hate having my picture taken by anyone but Rudy.

The Lady in Red?

(Original drawing stolen from this guy)

I saw him walk into the store.  He was unremarkable except for his size -- maybe 5'5" or so, and slight for a man in his late 20s.  He did have a pencil-thin mustache, which spoke of a fastidious nature.  He reminded me of a young Al Pacino: quiet, confident, watchful.  He strode casually to the wallet counter.  I met him there and began to show him some of the leather goods.  Then he was joined by his shopping companion.

Through the Christmas crowds came my wallet customer's physical opposite:  well over 6 1/2 feet tall, bare arms as big as some people's thighs and not an ounce of fat.  Black skin, which I could see a lot of, as he -- Not She -- wore a red sequined cocktail dress, halter style and backless; an unusual clothing choice for almost any occasion, but certainly for a Saturday afternoon at a small town mall in December.  Big, big hair that would make a 1982 Dallas socialite proud.  Long false eyelashes, wet wet lip gloss, garish makeup.  Not She was Diana Ross on steroids, and, while I really hate that expression, it was never more appropriate than in this story.  Not She shyly joined her diminutive companion at the wallet counter, resting long, thin fingers with long, red nails on the glass.

Miniature Al Pacino looked purposefully through the wallets, never looking up.  Not Diana Ross loomed over him, casting a shadow over the merchandise.  The buttery napa leather and glossy Italian hides failed to capture Mini Al Pacino's fancy, and he and Not Diana Ross casually left the store.

I cannot stress enough how easy it is to lose your composure in retail, especially during the holiday shopping rush when stores are packed, over-heated, and noisy, and your diet for 12 hours consists of caffeine and peanut M&Ms.  The fact that I was respectful was unremarkable; the fact that I maintained the composure of a mortician and didn't giggle once was PHENOMENAL.

I never saw either of them again.  I was disappointed; I wanted another look at Not Diana Ross's guns.


(Photo stolen from these guys) 

Slipping You a Mickey

I am so out of material it's just sickening.

 

And yet, I show up here every day, 80-90 times a day, hoping that someone has checked in to see what I have disgorged.  And you do.  I am most grateful and completely baffled.

 

So, of course, when I have nothing interesting happening around me about which to write (look Mom -- grammar!), I go to the great archives in my head, My Memory.  My Memory is not what it used to be, which is all the more sad (if you believe my brothers and my dad and Chas and pretty much everyone I have ever known) because My Memory was slipshod to begin with.

 

And yet, I show up here pretty often with tales to tell, yanked from the deep recesses of My Memory.  And lately, I must admit, My Memory has been spitting out quite a few tales of boyfriends past (for no Freudian or Dr. Philian reasons, I assure you).  This fact, too, is sad, knowing as some of you do how few real boyfriends I have had in my lifetime, and how horrifying were some of the more durable ones.  Gubby, don't say a word.

 

So of course I have an old boyfriend story to tell today.  Well, he wasn't really my boyfriend . . . okay, he was NEVER my boyfriend.

 

He was my employee.  And he was several -- maybe six? -- years younger than I was, and I was a young employer.

 

I will call him . . . Mickey.  He was cute, and smart, and funny and sarcastic and cute.  I had a HUGE crush on him, though he was only something like 19.  And he was cute.  It was positively killing me to work with him, often alone together in the evening, and not being able to suggest going out for a friendly drink or tonsil hockey after work.  And so I kept my mouth shut.

 

Mickey, however, continued to be just as funny and smart and all of that other stuff I mentioned, as before, plus he had become an outrageous flirt.  We flirted so ostentatiously that other people noticed.  My friend and right-hand person at the store, Kristin, certainly noticed.

 

One evening as Mickey and I checked in freight and stocked shelves together, the conversation turned to clothing.  Mickey suddenly looked down in disgust at the white oxford shirt he was wearing, and before I could stop him he grabbed the plackets and ripped the shirt open, popping off every button.  "What are you doing?!" I asked, as amused as I was alarmed.

 

"I keep wearing this shirt, even though it's getting pretty grungy," he said.  "I know I shouldn't, but I just keep washing it and hanging it up.  This will keep me from wearing it, even if I wanted to."

 

He had a short-sleeved shirt on underneath (RATS), and he took off the ruined oxford and threw it in the trash beneath the counter.  We laughed about his impetuousness, and a little while later we locked up and went our separate ways for the night.

 

The next morning I came in to work a little after Kristin had opened the store, as usual.  "Morning Kristin," I said.

 

"Good morning," she said, her voice pregnant with irony.  I looked at her.  Her eyebrows were arched so high I feared they might get lost in her hair.

 

"What?" I asked.

 

A wry little smile pulled at the corners of Kristin's mouth, and she reached into the trash and pulled out Mickey's shirt.  "Do you wanna tell me about this?" she asked, in a tone more employerly than I had ever been able to manage.  Kristin may have been my employee, but she was also my friend, and she had way more self control and common sense than I did.

 

"What happened here last night, exactly?"  She couldn't hide her amusement, but I knew she was deadly serious, too, foreseeing all the problems that would arise from an interoffice romance in a 1200-square-foot store.  She thrust her hand toward me accusingly; it was full of the wayward shirt buttons.

 

When I stopped laughing -- and that took a while, believe me -- I assured Kristin that none of the things going through her head had actually happened.  Although . . . no, NOTHING had happened.  We had a good laugh over it, and even talked about how awful it would be around work if Mickey and I were ever
to . . . well . . .

 

So a couple of weeks later I could no longer take the stomach cramps I was giving myself by not spilling my guts to Mickey, and I spilled my guts to Mickey.  It worked out just long enough for a stellar junior high-appropriate mash session, then that was it.  Turns out Mickey had just picked up a new girlfriend that week.  My timing sucked once again.  So no drama, no sexual harassment suit, no more tension than before.  Sigh.

 

Man, I just love a good bodice-ripper, don't you?

The Wallet Man

One of the things our store, Tom Foolery, was known for was its fine leather goods selection.  Our favorite brand (which I’m told has gone dramatically downhill in the last decade) was Hugo Bosca.  Bosca’s signature hide, called Old Leather, was an elegant bench-dyed, hand-stained-by-little-old-men-in-Italy leather.  Other than the fact that it was pricey for our town – Chico ain’t Madison Avenue, folks – its beauty and quality sold itself.

There was a man who came into the store around Christmas time one year to look at wallets.  He had a distinctive look; he appeared to be completely without hair, and his middle-aged face and head looked as shiny and soft as a baby’s bottom.  He wore a red beret and a cardigan sweater, so he was somewhat natty, I guess.

He seemed to know what he was looking for.  I brought out the tray and he picked up a couple of billfolds and examined them closely.  I explained the craftsmanship, the soft leather lining which doesn’t rip or rot like fabric will, and so on.  I handed him a black Bosca wallet.

“I-I-I-I-I don’t wike bwack,” he stammered in a very loud voice.

“Oh,” I said, somewhat taken aback at how much volume he achieved while stuttering.  I handed him a beautiful burgundy wallet.  He recoiled, almost as if I had handed him a snake.

“N-N-N-N-NOT THE WED ONE!  I-I-I-I DON’T WIKE WED.  NOT THE W-W-W-W-WED ONE!”

I don’t want you to think I am making fun of him.  I admired his fortitude in the face of two rather severe speech impediments.  But it was his panicky reaction to the color wed . . . I mean, burgundy . . . which caught me off-guard.  A tall bald man in a red beret yelling “NOT THE WED ONE!” in a gift store will earn a red mark on my calendar any day.

To my surprise, he bought the antique brown wallet, which was about $65.  I was curious to see what kind of wallet he carried.  Out came a vinyl checkbook cover, like the complementary one a bank gives you when you open a checking account, with the cash tucked inside.  I had asked him early in the transaction if he were looking for a gift for someone, but no, it was for himself, he’d said.

Over the years he came in to look at wallets about twice a year, and every time he’d buy the same style and color wallet.  All of the clerks had been warned not to show him burgundy, and if I thought I had a giggler in the group I made sure to send her on an errand while I waited on the man myself.

Never kept track of how many wallets he actually bought from us, but each one was purchased not as a gift, but for himself.  And when he reached for his money it was always tucked neatly into a blue vinyl checkbook cover.

Wormy And LaDonna

I haven’t written much about the chapter of my life entitled Tom Foolery, from which this blog title sprang.

I owned the gift store Tom Foolery for exactly ten years. I took over the store on September 15, 1991, after escrow cleared. I relinquished the key to the mall manager and walked away on September 15, 2001. Within a couple of weeks the entire mall building was leveled.

There’s a lot of pain associated with Tom Foolery, but I don’t go there very often and I won’t go there today. Today I want to start telling you some of the funny things which happened there during those ten years – maybe even earlier, because I worked in the store before buying it.

Today I’ll start with Wormy. Wormy is a strange little man, not quite right upstairs, who frequented the store. He garnered his nickname, I am told, in school (probably at the hands of my friend and one-time Tom Foolery co-worker Mike). His bookworm appearance and habits were the source of his moniker, but it’s his astoundingly thick glasses which have never been cleaned which made the name stick. (He has worked for years at Taco Bell, where there is no shortage of grease in the air, then he apparently smears the grease around his lenses and calls it good.)

Wormy developed crushes, one by one, on most of the girls at Tom Foolery. He spent a great deal of time staring at these women from behind his swimmy, filthy lenses – his eyeballs appearing to float free behind the thick glass. Wormy’s modus operandi consisted of walking quickly into the store, clutching his ever-present backpack in front of him. He’d make a bee-line for some item he could pick up and examine, then once he’d established his cover as an engrossed shopper, he’d peer around displays at Betty, or deAnne, or whomever the object of his affection happened to be. For a while it was me, but, sadly, that day moved by quickly when Wormy saw LaDonna.

LaDonna was, and is, very good-looking. I suspect at 17, when she first joined us at Tom Foolery, she was breathtaking to Wormy, because she was his most enduring crush. Years, even. I once saw Wormy pick up a book and pretend to read it (yes, Gubby, it was probably The Fart Book, since I know you’ll ask) and then he peeped at LaDonna over the top of the book. Only thing he hadn’t planned well was that the book was upside-down.

In 1992 or 93 I opened a Halloween store for a month – the only one in Chico that year – just a short distance away from Tom Foolery in our mall. We had a broad assortment of wigs and costume accessories. Wormy made it part of his daily routine to stop in and lurk, especially if LaDonna was working there that day.

The Halloween store’s first week open was very busy; when the schools let out the place was crawling with kids, and it took two or three clerks to man the place. I floated back and forth between the two stores. So when I got a call from Mike to come down to the Halloween Store to help, I hustled. When I got there, I saw why Mike had called: Wormy was trying on costume stuff, and poor LaDonna was trapped into helping him. While Mike and I kept an eye on the kids and ran the register (Kit may have been there, too – I’m not sure), LaDonna patiently helped Wormy get "dressed." We knew he was eating it up, and it was creepy beyond imagination, but it was rapidly becoming VERY funny, as Wormy donned the cheapest, cheesiest vampire accessories we had. The black and red vinyl cape was bad enough, but when he reached for the $6.95 black Dracula wig that looked more like a Muppet, Mike and I looked at each other and tried not to laugh.

Wormy was helpless with the wig, which was too tight, even on his small skull. He seated it on his greasy head like a helmet, then looked at LaDonna for help. Reluctantly, half-heartedly, she reached out to adjust the monstrosity perched on Wormy’s head. Wormy went limp, arms hanging at his sides, and leaned forward toward LaDonna almost in supplication. LaDonna (and Mike and I) realized with horror that Wormy wanted LaDonna to take over dressing him. This was too much, and when Wormy turned around to model it for us, Mike and I had a choice: stand firm and risk laughing in Wormy’s face, or retreating for the storeroom.

We bailed.

We race-walked for the back room where we collapsed on the floor and laughed until we cried. We literally couldn’t speak for laughing. Yes, we’d abandoned LaDonna, but that seemed preferable to laughing out loud in front of poor Wormy. Bad friends, bad boss. As soon as she could, LaDonna excused herself from Wormy and burst through the storeroom door to yell at us and to drop a few well-chosen swear words, where we still lay sprawled on the floor, holding our aching sides and wiping away tears. Then the door opened again, and in walked the mall manager in his three-piece suit (literally), along with his operations manager. They had walked by the storefront and seen a store full of people, and no clerks in sight. It was a difficult moment to explain.

The memory of Wormy in that wig is worth any merchandise we may have lost to shoplifters.