HUMAN WRECKAGE

Unsolicited Enlightenment

This just in, and it’s official: Sunday I crossed the line separating middle-aged men from dotty, know-it-all seniors.

I habitually buy my cigarettes at a Circle K (formerly Mac’s) located in an adjacent neighbourhood called Windsor Park. Fittingly, my supplier’s store is a block away from the Cross Cancer Institute. Because federal health regulations insist cigarette packaging be uniformly ugly, the various brands are virtually indistinguishable. Consequently, it usually takes the clerk a moment or two to rustle up what I’m dying for. And so, to kill time while I wait, I examine the display racks of Bic disposable lighters.

I’m fussy about the graphics on my lighters. I will not buy a “Flick My Bic” Bic. I will not buy a basketball, beer or Harley-Davidson Bic. I will not buy a Rush Bic because they’re a bit too proggy for me and I can’t abide Geddy Lee’s shriek. I will not buy an Aerosmith Bic because they haven’t made a good album since 1976’s Rocks.

My current Bic is a Montreal Canadiens home sweater, red. My backup lighter is white and features an “Original Six Vintage Hockey” Canadiens logo, whose CH letters are skinnier, the design more open. This time of year, I’m on the lookout for baseball themed Bics because once in a while I come across a Montreal Expos one. I miss that team. I’ve used Bob Marley lighters although I think they’re more spliff accessories. Elvis is a rare score.

The absolute apex was the afternoon I met the Rolling Stones Bics. I bought the three that were available. The fourth in the set was sold out. The first one was a Canadian flag tongue logo. The second was a thumbnail cover shot of the 2005 Rarities compilation, itself a still from 1978’s “Respectable” promotional video. Those two, the butane exhausted, are displayed on a shelf in the basement of the Crooked 9 alongside my Stones CDs. The third one, a Union Jack motif, a pop art design affectation I normally associate with the Who, the Kinks and the Sex Pistols, went missing. Maybe it’ll turn up in the pocket of a jacket I’ve not worn since last fall. Maybe it’s underneath the passenger seat of the Honda.

Yousef is a big young man, a bald young man. He had a gratuitous foot on me due to the elevation of the Circle K till. A clear snot and spittle sheet hung between our masked faces. He said, “If you want a carton, I’ll have to go in the back and unlock the safe. That might take ten minutes.” He was working by himself in the store. “How many packs in a carton, eight? What if I give you eight loose packs?”

“That’ll work.” Eight equals eight. “Whatever’s simplest for you.” Jousef turned his back to me to play Whack-a-Lung, opening the lids to the cigarette shelving, hunting for a particular brand that looks like all the other ones. I contemplated the rack of Bic lighters. The upper tray was backwards, the graphics facing inward, away from the customer. When Jousef turned around, I said, “You’re not going to sell many lighters displaying their warning labels and bar codes. You should turn it around.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He did. The back half of the tray was pocked with empty slots. “Look! Half are sold! That’s why!”

I said, “That’s just lazy. You’d sell the other half too if their fronts were facing your customers. You probably have a minute of downtime now and then? You could just rearrange the lighters in the tray, graphics out. Take no time at all.”

Months before I’d asked him if he was able to stock particular types of branded Bic lighters. He said, “No.” He shrugged, he just sold whatever head office sent him. I shrugged back at him, made a smoker’s noise in the back of my throat, sort of dry, sort of wet: “Umugh.”

Jousef began to fuss with the Bics; I’d inadvertently though effectively delayed our transaction. Oh, dear me. I stood there watching him and thought, “Who am I to tell another person how to run their business?” Rotate the stock. Don’t ever allow inventory to gather dust from neglect. Cross-merchandise too, ensure hot dog buns and condiments are proximate to the wieners.

The fundamental equation of retail merchandising, suggestion, attraction and consummation, will never change. Customers are crows in a world of shiny objects. I know this from experience. I learned this early on when I’d sported an apron in the grocery business rather than a jacket and tie. A lesson from back in my day. Couple that with meGeoff’s Universal Law of Wham!: “If you’re gonna do it, do it right, now!” Those shiny objects must be readily available for impromptu purchase.

I’m certain Jousef welcomed and valued my input even as I’d caused myself to cringe with embarrassment. Nothing resonates quite like advice from a retired stranger. And if one of those anonymous Bics had been Expos or Stones instead of a brand of cigarettes I don’t smoke – excepting Jousef’s infrequent mistakes, cartons or loose packs I can never be bothered to rectify with a return trip - I’d have bought a couple.                                 

meGeoff has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of shopworn expertise since 2013. My novella Of Course You Did is coming soon. E-mail alerts from this blog will be disengaged by the provider come July.