Last weekend Christina and I were at the mall a few towns over and decided to check in on the GameStop there. I went in hoping to find a good deal on some old games, and I came out with the humbling realization that even though I may not work for GameStop anymore, I am still just as vulnerable to the horrific experiences that so frequently manifest inside those hallowed walls.
We were picking up a copy of Alan Wake for the Xbox 360 (expect Christina’s impressions soon, since she’s the survival horror fanatic) and suddenly we became bystanders to one of the most astoundingly stupid conversations ever to be spoken north of Arkansas. I mean, this was the kind of stupid that hasn’t existed since man decided walking upright would impress the chicks more than dragging his knuckles on the ground.
Anyway, I’m being rung out by one employee and I hear someone ask the other employee at the other register about a camera for the PSP. He asks the other guy if he knew anything about it. He said he’d never heard of it either.
“I think it only came out in Japan,” I said, trying to be helpful.
The other customer looked at the employee, and I turned to look at him. I’m not a judgmental guy, but I knew just by looking at him that this guy was a product of the shallow end of the gene pool. He was skinny, but not like, NORMAL skinny. It was a ratlike skinny, the kind of skinny where his skeletal structure immediately inspired feelings of revulsion and distrust that shakes you to your very core. Yellow wispy hair was combed over his forehead (well, I shouldn’t say “combed.” I think the only thing he had in his medicine cabinet at home was his mom’s backup supply of Skoal), hanging over his eyes that seemed too small for his face. His cheeks were a topographical map of some alien landscape, an unending valley of countless scars and horrific mountain ranges of blemishes.
“Japan?” the kid asks the employee. “What the fuck is that?”
“Japan?” the employee repeats, unaware of what he was being asked.
“I’ve never heard of that shit.”
The employee looked at me, then at his cohort. “You’ve… never heard of the country of Japan?”
“Naw, man.”
“It’s a country in Asia. That’s where like, almost all video game stuff comes from.”
“Aw man, that sounds like some pretty fucked up shit, man. I dunno.”
He turned and left, and the two employees, Christina, myself and the guy who had been in line behind him all stood in stunned silence, turning to each other for some kind of assurance that yes, that did indeed just happen.
Once he was out of earshot, we all just laughed. Not like, a sitcom laugh. It was more of a nervous laugh, almost forced, hesitant. It was the kind of laugh that you laugh to keep yourself from crying. I’d say that I lost a little bit of faith in humanity, but I’m not sure that that guy could even be classified as human in the first place.
“I’m so glad I came in here today,” the other customer said finally, breaking the years of mind-melting silence.
“You know something,” I said, this very story forming itself in my head, “I think I am too.”