I thought what I was looking for this particular afternoon would not be particularly hard to find. I just needed something to transfer sound from a cassette deck to my pc. I basically knew what I needed, a connector of sorts that would accept audio output then into the pc via usb. I made the mistake of trying to get one of the poorly-trained chimps at Best Buy to help me locate the item.
Well, when I first walked in the store, I became a little distracted as I noticed there was some music playing but the guitar was up a little in the mix. I'm thinking "hey someone is playing along with a guitar." So I go have a look and there is pimple-faced teen having a good ol' time playing along. However, this was not like any guitar I've ever held. This was some flimsy piece of plastic, not even real strings. It was part of the Guitar Hero game (or Rock Band). Yes it was a little naive to assume it would be a real guitar and I did feel like a bit of a relic. Well it seems there is practically no musical skill required to play this game. You don't even need to keep the rhythm as it's all matching the pretty colors. It was kind of sad actually. For a second it seemed any of the natural rebellious spirit inherit in a healthy teen was being moderated and subdued by this device.
It's also kind of sad that an entire generation of kids get their musical kicks and satisfaction from this instead of actually learning an instrument. So I'm holding this thing and the kid is asking to have it back. I said, "First tell me the natural minor of G." "Wha?" I repeated, "Tell me the natural minor of G and you can have it." The kid had a bewildered look on his face, "The unnatural bees?" Damn it!
Well, I gave up and went to the accessories and cables section. I couldn't find what I was looking for. I foolishly asked the first monkey in a blue shirt if he could point me in the right direction. He had no clue what rca cable was, what usb was or what planet he was on. Eyes totally glazed, dumb confused smile with a slim but soggy body that matched his soggy, wet brain. "Did you just smoke?" I asked. He laughed, sort of nodded and walked away.
Then I approached another kid who seemed to have a bit more energy. However, it turns out it was too much energy as in the middle of my question, he puts his hand out to stop me and says "wait a sec" and proceeds to start dancing. I mean it literally, he started dancing. It was like he was in some musical theater. (This is actually the third time a Best Buy employee started dancing on me in the middle of a question. I donno, was this an invite to dance along? Did I just get served? What do you do in that situation? Do you applaud or dance along?
I figured I'd try one more. This time I found a girl. I thought I'd have better luck as they are usually more intelligent than teenage boys. Also, she was a little older, maybe 19 or 20 and she seemed to have some more experience there as well. So I follow her halfway across the store and she shows me some video tape transfer software. I told her, "Yea I see that but I was just looking for one particular type of cable or converter for audio tape only, not a whole vhs to dvd software suite" She says, "But you said tape and this says tape." I repeated, "Yes but I'm just looking to convert audio tape." She looks up at the ceiling, then back at me, "audio tape?" Then I tried to be more specific, "cassette tape but it doesn't really matter as long as I can go to a usb into the computer."
At this point she becomes very confused and then I lose her attention entirely as a girl friend walks by and the go into a long conversation about a choice of top another girl is wearing. "Yo' I Iike-ed dat top she wearing" "I knoooow right but it's almost the same color as the one I boughted last week." "Reealllyyyy? wooooow" "I know riiiiiight" "I know wow" "riiiiiggght and it's not really pink but like some other color like pink but not, you know?" "Yea I know, riiiiight"
I gave it another shot on the way out but this other kid was even more stoned and stupid then the rest. "Why don't you like just buy something to copy them" And where would I get something to help me do that? "Uhh ehhhh ummmm." I'm convinced every employee at Best Buy is retarded to begin with then smokes a ton of pot before each shift.
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