Customer Service, Washington Heights Style

Growing up in suburban Oregon you become accustomed to people like supermarket cashiers and gas station attendants greeting you with an enthusiastic, "Hi! How are you today?" as if you're their long-lost best friend. At the supermarket across the street from my apartment in New York City, I'm not exaggerating when I say that normally my transaction is made at the register without a single word being exchanged. Often the cashier doesn't even look at me, even when I say "Thank you." Traveling between the two locales often results in a brief bout of culture shock.

Tonight I stopped in at my local crappy video store to get a movie. (I got Bring it On. It was the poo!)

Let me define "crappy." They have Godfathers 2 and 3, but not the original. Jaws 2 and 4. Steel Magnolias is on the shelf, but the video is missing (yet they leave the box on the shelf). They have four DVD copies of Soul Plane but they don't have Citizen Kane. Kubrick fan? They do have Eyes Wide Shut and 2010, which I know he didn't direct but that's as close as they get.

Once I went in to ask if they had Romy & Michele's High School Reunion and the girl behind the counter furrowed her brow and said, "Oohhhhh...I donnnow these people."

In terms of organization, they have a very simple system. Videos are against the wall, DVD's are in the center shelves. Other than that, there's not even a pretense of subdivision (action, romance, comedy, etc.). Once -- many years ago -- they made an attempt at alphabetization, but -- and seriously, I'm not making this up -- they put every single The movie under T.

So you just go in with an open mind (i.e., don't go looking for something specific, it's not there), start in one corner, and just move along until you find something acceptable. While I was doing that, the phone rang.

"[Company Name Deleted to Protect the Innocent] Video," said the girl, whom I've never seen before. The following is a transcript of her end of the conversation. I can't phoneticize it all very well, you'll just have to imagine this all done in a Washington Heights spanish accent.

"Umm...no, I don't know. Yeah, I can look it up. How you spell that? L-A-U-R...no, we don' got it. What? Um, okay, L-A-W-R...Lawrence of Arabia? Umm, lemmesseee...issout. Yeah. Tomorrow. What? No, thassout too. I know because someone just checked it out. Yeah. What? Um, okay...Chinatown. C-H-I-N...yeah, video only. I said, VIDEO ONLY. No we don' got DVD. What? How many movies you gonna make me look up? I mean, cuz, lady, I don' mean to be rude or nuthin, but like, typically people they come in here and look for their movie, you know? Okay, I'm jus' sayin. We're open until 10:30. Bye."

Then she says to me, for no particular reason, "Did you see Constantine yet?" (It opened yesterday.) "Umm, haven't had a chance yet, no," I said. "Oh my gaw, I GOTTA see that movie! I saw the trailer and I be like, daaayyyyuuumm, that looks good!" (Slate said it's "borderline incoherent, theologically unsatisfying, and short to the point of dwarfism on suspense," but I didn't share that with her.)

So then this lady comes in and she wants a movie version of Frankenstein, preferably the recent Kenneth Branaugh version. (She hasn't yet learned rule #1 about coming in with an open mind.) The girl looks in the computer. "OH, e-I-n, I thought it be like "ine," thass weird. Um, yeah, we gottit."

"Do you have the Kenneth Branaugh version?"

"Um, yeah, 1964."

"What? No, that can't be it, I think it's from the 90s or even later."

"Okay um, well, I don't know, but it says here 1964."

"Could the computer be wrong, I mean, could that be a typo?"

"I don't know." (This is said in that shrugged way where all the words run together and the consonants are omitted, so it comes out like "Iohoh.") "Lemme see if it's back there." She goes away. "Yeah, we got it."

1964 is the index number of the video.

The customer then proceeds to share that she just finished reading the book. "I'm hoping this movie version is more faithful than some of the others," she adds.

"Ooooh, I hate that, when you like, you know, see a good movie and then you read the book and you be like, 'what is this?' cuz it's all different and shit."

I felt that way after The Passion of the Christ.

Anyway, finally it's my turn. I give her my card, she looks up my number, and then I guess she feels obligated to verify my identity.

Is "Andrew" an uncommon name? Because, she stared at that screen for a couple of seconds and then literally had to sound it out. It was barely recognizable. My last name was just beyond her.

Yes, that's me, Awnderroow Mik [pause] kkyurrrreee.

Then I give her a $20. I've just gone to the ATM, it's all I have.

"You don't got change?"

I'm trying to imagine a video store at 8:00 p.m. on a Saturday night that hasn't yet done enough business to make $16.76 in change. But I guess with customer service like that, it's not such a mystery after all.

As soon as I get my job, I have two things to say: a) Cable, b) Netflixx.