September 26, 2002

• It looks like the weather will be shitty for the foreseeable future, so I will most likely be doing a lot of blogging this week.  Having been asked (again!) when I’m going to talk about the Polish twins, here goes.  But first, a few words about some other memorable customers I have had over the years.  Some times folks come by as tell me they bought a knife from me last year and do I remember them, and I usually tell them the truth, i.e., that I usually only remember customers who give me a hard time.  Then again, there was the thin, classic-leather jacket clad, redheaded teenaged guy who stopped at my stand when I was still setting up along the lighway–he bought a copper bracelet.  I don’t know why this stuck in my tiny mind.  Then there was the couple who stopped at the far end of the turnout (it is roughly the size of a football field), left something on the ground, then came to my stand.  I had recently gotten in some really nice fossil fish, near museum quality, nicely cut out of the matrix.  The guy really liked them and bought one, happily showing it to his wife.  She fixed him with a glare and said incredulously “You-bought-a-FISH?”  The poor guy, I felt so sorry for him.

  
  

  Another guy I felt really sorry for stopped at my tand last year, and started tosalivate when he saw my four-blade congress made by Boker (Tree Brand)>  He is there “MY god, they don’t make that anymore, the book price is about $125!”  I was asking $79.  He didn’t get it because his wife wouldn’t let him.

  
  

  A foreign tourist, late middle-aged and very affluent and conservative looking (I guess he was Swiss or German), bonded with this big outrageous fantasy knife.  He looked at it longingly, left, came back with a woman and they had a short intense conversation (all I caught was “Nein., nein” from the woman.)  He then said “I buy this!” handed over the $69 or so, and walked off proudly, obviously feeling ten feet tall and bullet-proof.  A good weapon will do that for you.

  
  

  Foreign tourists can be the most fun, also the most frustrating, when they have little English and I know none of their language.  I remember a bunch of Russian climbers who bought several inexpensive knives among them. I remember a bunch of disgruntled tourists from India (they are often the worse to deal with, as they almost always try to Hindu me down on prices) climbing back on a tour van muttering “So this is that Talkeetna that they make such a big deal about, that is supposed to be so quaint.”  Chauvinist that I am, I was tempted to say something like “Okay, so we don’t have corpses floating in the river like there is in your filthy country, but it’s quaint enough for most people.”

  
  

  Okay, cutting to the chase. . . .One day this summer, I noticed this very large woman walking toward me.  I’m talking maybe six feet of so, maybe 250 pounds.  She was wearing these bright green plastic sandals, a loose flowing skirt of somesort of purple gauzy material,m paisley blouse, bright pink headscarf, and her hair was braided into pigtails.  Walking next to her was another woman, same description.  They stopped at the stand and there was no communication going on.  They came back with this skinny ferret-faced dude who told me they (the women) were twins, and that they all were Polish, and that I should therefore give them big discounts.  Like 50-70 percent off my asking price.  Business had been slow that day, so I finally let them wear me down to where I sold them a Bowie knife marked $39 for $20 (in case you didn’t gather, knives are high-markup itmes).  What made this remarkable to me was that usually women are (or pretend to be) put off by the knives, especially the big fantasy jobbies.  Oh well, go figure. . . . .

  • 2:33 pm
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