Michaels Blunder

Shopping — By Shopping Blogs on January 7, 2010 6:33 am

There’s a tiny little store called “Copy Right!” in one of St. Louis’ many malls, but you’ve probably never seen it.  It’s a basic copy shop—color copies, laminates, oversized photo prints, the works.  Its owner, Michael Bradley, is known by his friends and family as a man poorly equipped for the challenges of modern life and society—as a man who might sooner get a paperclip stuck in his ear than correctly balance his checkbook.  It was in an anxious frenzy that Michael purchased this store, eager to prove that he was a competent man, and perhaps a bit more eager to prove that he’d really learned something from that dreadful experience with the paperclip.  Some people operate well under stress, but Michael Bradley is not one of these people.

You see, when Michael Bradley was going through negotiations with the business’ previous owner, he failed to realize that he had never actually seen the store that he was purchasing.  Of course, he knew that it was in the mall—somewhere in that gigantic mall with its mess of shoppers.  As he was signing paperwork and shaking hands, he fixated on the notion of a large white store with white walls and a skylight in the ceiling, and over time he came to believe that this was the store that he was purchasing.  But like drops of milk in a glass of water, Michael’s thoughts and reality mixed partially at best.

When the deal had gone through, the business’ previous owner, smiling wildly, led Michael to the front door of his new workplace.  It was a great location, the previous owner chimed, leading Michael up the staircase of the parking garage.  Halfway between its second and third levels, the previous owner stopped, took a bow, and introduced Michael to his new life: an inauspicious utility door on which “Michael’s Copy Right!” was scribbled in Expo marker.  As the door squeaked open, a long, dark, humid hallway came into view.  Its sole light source was a single strand of Christmas lights that stretched only halfway down its tremendous length.

It took a while to reach the end of the hallway–a full thirty seconds, walking at a remarkably brisk pace.  Still, though, Michael could hardly contain his excitement.  Sure, he’d have to dress the hallway up–buy a few more strings of Christmas lights, perhaps, and possibly a full on neon sign–but surely, he thought, his customers would forgive him for the treacherous walk when they met him, the proud new proprietor of their favorite copy shop.  Right?

Michael was so preoccupied with his own thoughts that he barely realized that he’d finally reached the store itself.  It, too, was dark and musty, and for some unexplained reason the front windows were tinted.  Michael prodded the previous owner to open the security gate at the front of the shop, thinking that maybe, just maybe, his customers would prefer to enter the shop through the mall rather than the utility door in the parking garage.

“Well, it’s locked shut pretty permanently—broken, I mean,” admitted an increasingly jovial previous owner. “But really, really, the customers just love the back entrance! They think it’s unique!”

Michael pressed his face against tinted display windows.  He was hoping that he’d catch a glimpse of an overcrowded mall, brimming with happy shoppers just waiting to spend their money on quality copies. No such luck.  Instead, Michael’s view was dominated by a veritable wall of derelict Kiosks.  Looking further, he noticed that this wall of Kiosks was itself walled in by the Mall’s fountain, which was, in turn, walled in by an aggressive amount of yellow construction tape.  If any shoppers were going to get through to his store in the mall itself, they’d have to leap from the mall’s second floor, land in the fountain, and climb over the wall of Kiosks—all that and they’d have to be carrying a blowtorch if they wanted to get in through the broken front door.  Michael turned to face the previous owner.

“Really, now,” he sighed, running his hand through his hair.  “Just how am I supposed to get any shoppers?  Have you ever had a shopper find her way into here?”

The previous owner let out a rumbling laugh.  “I’m looking at my number one shopper right now!” he exploded, punching Michael lightly on the shoulder.  But it wasn’t until the man produced a small paperclip from his ear that Michael understood the overwhelming gravity of his mistake.

“Oh, man!” boomed the previous owner, his face turning red.  “How’d that get up in there again?  Hey, Michael—do me a favor and don’t tell my family about this!  Last time I got a paperclip stuck in my ear… Well, let’s just say that it didn’t turn out well!”

And with a thunderous clap on the shoulder, Michael was left to his fate.

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