Gander Mountain 309 - Spring 2017
"Mister Culverhouse, you need to equip yourself with a heavy rifle and a pistol suitable for personal defense and report to the Transvaal at once."
I was fondling a lovely Winchester Model 70 super grade in .458 Win Mag. I was envisioning being summonsed by the Home Office to a desolate village, a predatory lion needing slaying.
And then that couple walked up. I say that couple because it wasn't just that once customer, it was a couple. And they were both that customer.
"Howdy. I want you to show my girlfriend a couple of rifles." The fellow began, pleasently enough but already my alarm bells were going off.
"I need me a deer rifle!" She piped up energetically enough for me to believe that this wasn't a straw sale or anything, so no worries there.
Now, these two, were younger, decently well dressed but with the redneck affections that a lot of kids in our little well to do suburb of Atlanta affected.
Boots that had only seen mud at a Luke Byran concert, UGA hat even he probably went to Valdosta State, torn designer jeans that probably cost more than my P-345, you get the picture.
You could take your pick of which lifted 4x4 in the parking lot Daddy had paid for.
But hey, to each his own, and more importanly, those folks bought guns. A lot of guns.
Now, it pains me to say it, but I sold a lot of Taurus PT738s, SDV40Es, DPMS ARs, and 870 Express Magnums.
But hey, there poor choice in guns lets me buy cool guns.
"Sure, thing. We got a bunch of rifle. Any idea on what caliber you want?" I ask, already heading towards the Ruger Americans, knowing we had a camo one in .243 with a Vortex Crossfire on it.
"I want a thirty ought six!"
Oh, dear. Here we go.
Our little huntress was all of five feet nothing, and maybe a buck oh five soaking set.
"Um, ma'am, that's a lot of gun for Georgia whitetail..."
"I know, I'm not dropping them right there with my Savage three-oh-eight."
Dear Lord, why did I ever leave the Boy Scouts?
"Well, you see, it's really not the caliber, it's shot placement...."
"I can shoot! My Daddy taught me! He was in the Marines!"
"I really think you'd do better with a heavier gun in .243; that'll make it more fun to shoot and cheaper to practice."
"I don't need to practice, I need something to drop a deer."
Honey, buying a pink Glock doesn't make you tough.
This exchange went on a few more minutes. In a perfect world, I would have said "screw it" and sold her what ever .30-06 she wanted from the rack. But I think I made her madder than she already was.
You can't make this stuff up. And if you ever wondered why counter jockeys like me have a burning desire to drink, well, there you go.
A co worker solemnly swears that I walked off muttering something about the Democrats being right and maybe there should be a test.
I sold guns at a Walmart for a little while (and I always feel like I should be standing in front of a 12-step group when I say that). Our best-sellers were the little single-shot Crickett rifles and, God help us, the Rossi Circuit Judge. Oddly, we almost never sold any .45LC or .410, so they weren’t shooting them, but still.
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain, sir. I seel a lot of Judges. And .410 slugs. After you hit your head against the wall enough, you can sometimes forget how stupid the American gun buying public can be.
DeleteActual conversation:
Delete“.308 is 762, right?”
“Well, .308 and 7.62 NATO are dimensionally similar, although the differences are kinda technical. You should only feed your gun what’s stamped on the barrel.”
“So, OK, give me two boxes of .308 for my SKS.”
“Woah! Wrong answer! An SKS won’t chamber .308, are you nuts?”
(Angry now) “What do I look like, stupid? I know this shit, man, and 762 is 762. You gonna sell to me or not?”
“Look at that, time for my lunch.”
Hey Mack;
ReplyDeleteMan I feel your pain, when you try out of the goodness of your heart to do something good for someone and it turns on you like one of Mike Vicks dogs, it makes you wander why do you bother,
Hence the reason why I enjoy say drinking.
DeleteWow!!! Just wow! You can’t fix stupid. Most interesting gun sale I was ever involved with during my brief turn at the WalMart gun counter involved a well dressed woman that I’d guess was in her 40s. She was purchasing a Ruger Redhawk in .44mag with a 7.5” barrel. I looked at her with raised eyebrow and asked what she planned to hunt with it (I was young and stupid at the time). She looked me straight in the eye and said: “Men.” No further questions your honor. Pass the witness.
ReplyDeleteAnd there is a lot of stupid at the gun counter
DeleteShe might have known what she was doing .....
DeleteIt's better to have them angry with you today for trying sell them the right firearm, than angry next week for selling them the wrong one. That having been said, while the customer isn't always right the customer is always the customer. There comes a point where you just take their money and be done with it.
ReplyDeleteMy problem has always been an unwillingness to sell a customer something they’re likely to cause death or GBH with. In my convenience-store clerk days, I wouldn’t turn your gas pump on if you were obviously drunk, and selling guns I would refuse a sale if you made my spidey-sense tingle too hard or, as above, you were about to pull a Mr. Fumducker with a rifle that might actually allow an out-of-battery open-chamber ignition. In the first case, my store manager and the local cops approved of helping keep drunks off the road, and in the second, they eventually stopped letting me sell guns there.
DeleteIf I was at my current shop, I would have. I doubt she would be unsafe with her "bigger" caliber
Delete