Tales of the Weird
I stepped out of the break room after lunch today to be confronted by the weirdest little man: he had a ratty, pointy face; he was sporting a massive comb-over; and he was wearing an extremely fluffy white angora sweater. As my eyes adjusted to the cloud of fuzziness that was his torso, I realized with amazement that it was a woman’s angora sweater. It had puffy shoulders and everything! It was like meeting a 60-year-old Ed Wood. He started mumbling to me about angora so I took him over to the case where we keep the balls. (They’re expensive so we keep ’em under glass.) He started telling me about his beloved sweater and how he bought it for five dollars at an op shop, and how it’s his fondest wish to have another knit just like it. I went to get Losh, the other manager. “Losh,” I said. “I have a complete loony over there who wants to get a 100% angora sweater knit and I don’t know what to quote him.” So she came over to deal with him. After much hemming and hawing, she quoted him a price of $700. That’s $500 for the wool and another $200 for the knitting. Seven hundred dollars for a sweater, of which we’d need 50% upfront. Undeterred, he picked out a pattern and Losh set about measuring him. Afterwards he disappeared to “go get the money.” “He’ll never come back,” I said. “He probably just wanted some attention.” Lo and behold, an hour later he was back with the deposit. I couldn’t believe it. I deal with some characters, I tell you…