The Print Store

There is a portrait that I would like to paint from a photo on the Internet. I saved the photo to my thumb drive and took it to the printer. I like to print out a photo-copy to work from - one that I can see well - one that I can spill paint on and no one cares. My home copier has some problems with color and size, so I go to town to a printing store when I want a good copy.

There are two people who work at the printer's, a man and a woman - three people if you count the golden retriever kept in the back room looking over the half door at the customers. The woman is always very helpful and friendly, but she sits off in a separate office and rarely deals with customers. I usually have to deal with the man, who sits in the main office. What can I say - the man is an ignoranus - both ignorant and an ass. I often sit out in the car before going in, to get my courage up and my heart rate down before entering the store. When I walk in, the man acts as if my business is not important and that I am interfering with his work. Then he almost always screws up something rather simple. Usually he hollers for the woman to come help him or she realizes that he is struggling and she hollers instructions to him. All the hollering makes you think they don't like each other very much. Bad vibes!

So I handed my thumb drive to the man and told him what I wanted. He plugged it into his computer. When I suggested I come around the counter to point out the picture that I wanted (as I have done in the past) the man squinted his already beady eyes and said, "We don't allow ANYONE behind the counter." I took several deep breaths and thought okay, we will see how well this goes. Sure enough, he could not find the right picture on the drive. So, rather than just having me point it out, he pulls the thumb drive and hands it to me and tells me to plug it into an old computer on my side of the counter. He, of course, has to come with me to start and log on to the computer, which took forever. Then he could not figure out how to make the thumb drive work on the old computer. I kept looking at the office door where the woman works, but she had closed the door and was not helping. They must have had a fight. He finally took the thumb drive out of the 'puter and handed it back to me saying that it would not work - as if that were that. I snatched it back, reached over, plugged it back in, pulled up the info, and pointed out the picture I needed printed. I figured the old computer was hooked up with the printer, but I was wrong. We started all over with him taking the thumb drive back to his desk and his computer. By the time he printed out the picture, I didn't care if it was right. I just wanted out of there.

That was probably my last attempt to do business there. I wanted to tell the woman that she is going to lose customers if she continues to let Ignoranus work out front, but I'm not sure how that would go over since the man is her husband. Too bad - I really like the woman, and the dog is nice too.