[Artist77]

Story 1-

Went to Target a week ago, and asked a kind kid working there if they had any more MU in the back. He checked, said yeah, but he had to check with a manager. This lady comes, she talks with him, turns to me and says-

"Pfft, no."

"Excuse me?" is my only response.

"These are collector items," she explains. "And we don't sell them early."

So I point out to this LOVELY woman how A) it's not early, there is no street date, B) they have plenty room on the shelf, C) the Target remod was scheduled for July 24th (it was Aug 2nd, I think), D) I'm a customer, and I'm asking for help. Whether I collect them or not, I am merely trying to make a purchase.

Now, I was extremely polite and sweet with my logic, all smiles and candy tone. But it doesn't matter to her.

"it's policy," she says angrily. "We can't have people coming here and taking everything from the back, it isn't fair, just so they can sell it on eBay."

She has a point (I sell stuff here, but still a point), but, nonetheless, I am a customer at that moment.

"Fine," I say. "I'll check Wal-Mart next door and see if they have any. And if not, I'll go on eBay and pay $30 a figure to scalpers, because people like you don't want to help a customer who literally comes here every day looking for these items," which I did (eBay, ugh) and do (every day after work), "And if you want to talk about fair, miss, then what do I get from the fair exchange of coming here and trying to give you people my money, when you don't have what I want. This is a breakdown of commerce," and then I proceeded to show her how lacking her toy department was, pointing out how many months every action figure series was at that time. "Three months behind, 8 months behind, 6 months, probably over a year here. You don't have what I want on shelves, so how can I give you my money if you can't even look in the back to see if you have what I need?"

She grunted, relented, and brought out their stock. It was old, and I actually had everything, but I bought a Cable and Apocalypse and an Iron Man 2020 just so it was worth the time of the young kid who originally was helping me.

As I'm leaving, she says to me "By the way, you catch more honey with sugar."

"True, but you weren't being a fly, you were being a (expletive). And you wouldn't of had anything to catch if I hadn't asked."

Now, maybe this was rude of me, but this lady was so demeaning (I'm honestly leaving out some of the ruder things she said to me during our argument because I cannot recall her exact wording, and it was... unpleasant), but perhaps you all can enjoy the tale.

Story 2-

I went to target tonight to return a broken Spider-Man figure (the wrist joint broke), and I see, rushing before me in line, a guy with 7 Crossbones figures and 4 Red Skulls, including a variant. I'm thinking "Eff this guy, he's totally a scalper who didn't get what he wanted off eBay, so here he is, trying to get his money back..." when it hits me, 'Hey, I should check for new figures first.'

Boy, am I glad I did. Got 2 colored Dr. Stranges, 2 Skaars, 2 Falcons, a Scarlet Spider and a Dr. Doom (most of which I plan on selling here on the ark to recoup my spending cash on a scalped Strange on eBay). Grabbed them, walked back to cust service, where the guy was still waiting in line. He goes up, gets his money back (as I figured) and turns around, only to see my haul, in hand.

He steps back and waits for me to go up there, and I cannot believe how picture perfect for a scalper the guy is. Balding with his remaining hair pulled back in a pony tail, very over-weight with a too tight grey shirt from CM Punk, round rim glasses and flop sweat. As soon as I buy the figures, he asks how much I'd like for them. I tell him $30 for the Dr. Stranges a piece, and he gets upset.

"That's, like, 3 times how much they cost."

To which, I respond, "Actually, it's 410% what it costs. And, I'm sorry, was there a reason other than eBay you just returned 11 Crossbones and Red Skulls?"

He got mad, stepped closer and asked how was I any better than him. I could have pointed out I have hair and my own house with my g/f and not my mom, but I just smiled and said "I'm selling these to collectors at a reasonable, negotiable price as I've already paid scalpers for these, and I figured, what they hey, share the luck."

He didn't seem to understand my point, and left.