And the winners keep on rolling

Today I got a call from someone who had an Xbox One preordered at the store. He wanted to know how long we could hold it for him, since he "spent all his money at the bar last night" and didn't know when he was getting paid next.

SOLUTION: He should team up with the food stamps guy and have wacky sitcom adventures that end with neither of them getting a next-gen console.

It's been a rough couple of weeks at Blogger HQ, with the PS4 coming out. I've taken to answering all questions in the simplest way possible, because repetition is making my voice hurt.

"Do you have any PS4s?"

"No."

"Do you know anyone else who has PS4s?"

"No."

"Do you know when you're getting more PS4s?"

"No."

"Can you call me when there's more PS4s?"

"No."

The prize for "most desperate call yet" goes to the guy who, on the night of the release, called the store and asked if we could give him a PS4 in exchange for $500 in food stamps.

"...................No."

"Get out."

A normal-looking middle-aged man came in and walked to the register, where he had the misfortune of encountering ladyboss.

"Hey," he said. "Can I buy all your extra Xbox Ones? I want to sell them on eBay."

"Get out."

"What?"

"Get out."

He left quickly.

Today was a doozy

Deadbeat Dadurday is a doozy every week, and I was workin' the Big Daddy Shift (12-9:30), so I was not expecting it to be a great day at work. But wow. Wow.

I had multiple parents come up to me and complain that Pokémon is a huge scam that's ripping them off and ruining their lives. The first mom, I was like, "I think it's taking over her life, not yours."

"NO. NO. IT IS TAKING OVER MY LIFE."

Why, because your daughter sits quietly and plays Pokémon? Ok, player. God forbid these people ever find out about Skylanders, which is just like Pokémon except you have to buy all the monsters in real life instead of catching them in the game.

Not that I consider children's toys a "scam," mind you. Maybe don't have kids next time!

Speaking of Skylanders, I had a guy last week who bought Skylanders Swap Force in a really elaborate manner and then came back today to accuse me of stealing his pre-order deposit. Basically, he'd bought a new system since he pre-ordered the game, and he wanted the game for his new system, but hadn't changed his pre-order. The pre-order bonus for Swap Force was a bonus figurine that only rings up as the freebie price when rung out in the same transaction as a pre-order pickup. So in order to get him his bonus character, I had to have him pick up and pay for his pre-order normally, then do a second transaction to exchange the wrong version of the game for the right version. This kind of thing happens at my job a lot, so I knew what to do and explained what I did as I did it. Of course, Doofus lost the first receipt, and claimed he didn't get his deposit back, so I had to dig through the computer to find it and show it to him.

Do these people ever think to check their bank statements to see that they weren't charged the full amount? It's not my fault you didn't call and update your pre-order and I had to do register gymnastics to get you all the bonuses you're entitled to. Would you rather have not gotten your free character, sir?

Finally, we had the mayor of Team High Maintenance come in right at close to do some shopping for discounted PS3 games. We have about a million different sales running right now, none of which overlap, so he ended up spending forever in the store doing about four purchase-and-return transactions to try to get the best "deal,"  and whining about it if his $5 used PS3 games didn't look brand new.

The last exchange worked out that he owed me $0.02.

I made him pay it.

IN CONCLUSION: Fuck this shit. 

GTA V midnight release aftermath madness

Surprisingly normal, with no little kids bragging about how they were being allowed to stay home from school to play the game. (Apparently all the Parents-of-the-Year save that privilege for Call of Duty.)

The only real issue we had was that our state increased sales tax this month, so everyone who full-paid the game before September 1st owed an extra fifteen cents.

Most people were cool about it. One guy even left all his change behind to help other people out. (Thanks, guy! You're all right.) But then, as it always happens, we get this one douchebag who just won't let it go.

"I PAID FOR THIS FIVE MONTHS AGO," he said. "YOU CAN'T CHARGE ME EXTRA TAX."

"Well, you weren't actually buying a product until literally right now," I said. "You just put a deposit down that covered the former cost of sales tax. That changed, so you have to pay the difference."

"I PAID FOR THIS FIVE MONTHS AGO," he said.

"No, you just put a deposit down."

"I PAID FOR THIS FIVE MONTHS AGO. YOU CAN'T CHARGE ME TAX. ARGLE BLARGLE."

It was a collector's edition game and and guide that he had preordered, so he owed about a dollar, which he finally coughed up when he realized I wasn't particularly sympathetic to his brilliant tax-dodging plan.

We also get a lot of people who insist on buying things online so they "won't have to pay tax." Most states seemed to have caught up with that- I know I have to pay sales tax on online purchases here, even for game downloads. And even if you don't pay taxes through the seller, you're still supposed to declare your purchases to the government, because not paying your taxes is a crime.

"Bye! Have fun getting audited!" - Things I'm not allowed to say

If I never have to explain sales tax to anyone ever again, I could die happy.

SEE ALSO: This guy.

No, seriously, is it September 17 yet?

Today, a man spent about twenty minutes trying to bribe me into giving him his Grand Theft Auto V early. This sort of thing isn't uncommon at all, but luckily, I hate all our customers, so it's easy not to give into temptation.

"Come on," he said. "I already paid for it, just give it to me early."

"I can't do that," I said. "[Store] gets fined, and I would lose my job."

"I have $40 cash I can give you," he said.

"I'm too poor to lose my job over this," I said.

I mean, seriously. If you're gonna ask me to lose my job, you've got to give me at least $1000. For food and stuff. If you pay my rent and bills until I find a new job, I will happily give you your GTA V.

I mean, what kind of asshole asks someone to lose their job so they can have a toy two days early?

We give free games to everyone but you

This one time, a guy traded in some old crap for about four dollars. He wanted to buy Diablo III.  I told him it would be $59.99. He said “Well, I have forty bucks cash. Can we work something out?”

No. No, we can't work something out.