fandomhigh | Retail 101, Monday morning, All and Sundries

All and Sundries is, frankly, a mess. Baldrick moves quietly through the store sweeping and gathering up debris, but it's fairly obvious that there was some sort of ruckus here recently.

Edmund stands by the cash register waiting for the students to all arrive and sign in. Once they are assembled, he begins.

"Retail is often a demeaning and frustrating occupation. Its rewards are few and sometimes subtle. Being overtly insulting is entertaining, but sometimes, hard on one's bones.

"Better is the pleasure of informing your customer that they are a complete blithering idiot and having them thank you for that privilege.

"Baldrick will now assist me with a demonstration."

Baldrick shuffles forward holding a piece of paper in one hand and a shopping bag in the other. He looked at the paper and read stiltedly, "Good. Afternoon. This," he held up the shopping bag, "Hat. Is too. Small?"

Edmund rolled his eyes at Baldrick's recitation but responded. "You do have a very large skull there, don't you, sir? You hearten men everywhere who have ever heard 'size doesn't matter.'" Then he plastered on a smile that would make small children cry while Baldrick gaped like a dehydrating fish and said, "I will exchange your hat right away."

He shooed Baldrick away and turned back to the class. "Obscure. Possibly obtuse. I have insulted Baldrick and he may have even thought I was complimenting him, but I have amused myself and perhaps compensated for the fact that my employer has told me that I'm fired if he hears one more complaint from a customer about my bad attitude.

"Retail, children, is a war - us against them - clerk against customer. They hold the power of the purse, you hold the power of the cash register, the 'we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone' sign, and the key to the store. Never compromise, and never back down.

"Again, I want you to break down into groups. Two groups of two, one group of three. Practice your veiled insults with each other in a clerk/customer setting. I will assist you with object lessons as you progress."

"Your assignment is to insult at least one person this week and have them not catch it. I expect a complete reporting of that in our next session. Failure may ~~at your mun's discretion~~ be rewarded with detention."

[ooc: Break up, chat, insult each other. I'll be along as soon as I can to have Blackadder deliver his critiques, but I'm on PST, so it will be later in the day for the east coasters.]

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Blair frowned as he tried to work out just what she was talking about and then burst out laughing. "Oh my god, I can't believe you said that! That's hysterical!" He leaned against the counter, giggling helplessly. "You...glass...kumquats! Ha! Good job!"

"Really?" She grinned at him, a little shy. "I mean, you're not mad? Because I didn't mean it--I'm sure there are tons of girls here who'd be happy to, um. Yes."

"Does this store even sell kumquats?" Dawn asked, a little belatedly, as she glanced around.

"I'm not mad." Blair tried very hard not to blush until he remembered that Bel's bet wasn't for all of his classes and he turned a deep red. "Are you mad? I didn't mean any of those things I said. You're not bloated or have yellow teeth or anything. And I like your shoes."

"Yup, didn't you study the store plan last week?" Blair waved behind. "Blackadder carries dried and fresh ones." ~~fruitmodder!~~

"I'm not mad," Dawn shook her head. "And thanks. I like them too," she wiggled her toes again. "You were really insulting though. I was totally convinced!"

"Huh. Guess I should look at that..."

"You were very rude too." Blair grinned and bounced. "Yay for being mean! Although I'm going to have to meditate for hours."

"He mentioned last week that there's going to be a test, so maybe you should."

"Really? Why do you have to meditate?" Dawn asked, feeling a little proud of herself. "Test? But...we don't get graded, do we?"

"Insulting people for no reason? Lying? Accusing Becky of being capable of tart-ness? I can feel my karma getting all icky right now." Blair shuddered.

"Uh...I don't know. Maybe we just get treats if we do well!"

"But there was a reason," Dawn argued, "and it's because you were told to. And um, Becky isn't capable of tartness?" Somehow she thought that might be news to Becky. "What do you use to meditate?"

"I like treats." Maybe she would study.

"Doing the wrong thing because you were told to do it can often be more wrong than just doing it because you want to do it." Blair frowned. "Becky....is nice and not what she seems. I don't really need anything to meditate most of the time. Occasionally I'll use candles if I want to reach the spirit plane."

"Okay, point," Dawn admitted, although really, she had a long history of running into problems because she did was she was told not to do.

"And, um, okay on the Becky thing," though privately she thought Blair was wrong. Still, she'd only met her twice. "What is she?"

"I can't really talk about it." Blair hedged. "She made me promise."

"Okay. I won't push, then." She smiled. "It's good that you keep your promises to people."

Blair smiled widely and bounced. "Thanks, man. I appreciate you being understanding."

"No problem. So, glad to have your voice back?"

"Totally, man, totally." Blair nodded. "I talk a lot and it was very weird not to be able to. How about you?"

Dawn nodded a lot. "Yeah, I do much better when I can talk. I didn't like not being able to do anything."

"I hear that." Blair nodded. "Although my usual plan of doing something involves peaceful negotation or sit-ins. I don't think either would have worked this weekend."

"Plus sit-in's are way boring without the cheesy protest songs."

"I usually end up all researchy, unless I know what it is, like I did with this one, kinda. And my sister and friends are more the 'stab, stake, or ignite first, ask questions later' kind. And no, neither one would have worked," Dawn looked at him apologetically.

"Do you write your own protest songs, or do you look them up on the internet?"

Edmund cleared his throat.

"I hate to interrupt this scintillating discussion of professional horizontal clergy, but I would like to insert my commentary now."

He looked as though he had just swallowed an entire pomegranate only to be told that seeds really do sprout in your stomach.

"You both did," he grimaced, "quite well."

Dawn stared at him, then at Blair. "Really? Er, I mean, thank you."

Blair bounced excitedly. "Thanks so much, Mr. Blackadder!"

Retail 101, Monday morning, All and Sundries

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