It is a testimony to the evil that lurks in this EB that you can walk into the place knowing exactly what you want to buy and exactly where it sits on their shelf, and literally between the door and the shelf they can do something so evil that it leaves you stopped in your tracks in complete shock, having forgotten what you were there to do. Then you leave.

Truly there is a powerful malevolence here.

First, let me point out that whatever the evil factor is of this
place, I am pretty well immune to it. I decide to buy games by reading
game reviews. When I walk into EB, I know exactly what I’m going to
buy. I buy it (a new release, full price) and leave. Thank you, no
strategy guide.

(Sometimes I walk in knowing I’m not going to buy anything. I just
like being surrounded by the shiny seduction. It’s not like Peter was
*wrong* about that.)

On Sunday I walked in, having seen _Constantine_ the movie, to buy
_Constantine_ the video game. Again, please note, this was preplanned.
I had scheduled Sunday to see a cheesy movie and buy a cheesy video
game. (Movie was better than I expected. Haven’t booted up the game
yet.)

After the usual trawl past the shiny seduction, I walk to the counter.
New face there. Maybe it was Ray, I have no idea.

“Could I get Constantine for PS2?”

“Yes.”

He follows this pronouncement with a bland and patient smile. He waits
for me to proceed.

There are of course Constantine packages on the shelves. Since this is
an EB, they’re all empty. If I went and got one, New Face would have
the pleasure of putting in on the counter, turning around, fetching an
actual unopened package out of the stock behind him, selling it to me,
and then schlepping out from his Fortress of Usury to put the empty
back on the shelf. I know this and he knows this, and I always just
ask the counter attendent to hand me the damn thing, thus saving us
each an operation. The counter attendants I know understand this. It
is a small implicit social bond between us, and spare me the gagging
noises.

New Face does not partake of the ritual.

“Constantine,” I repeat, “for PS2.”

He smiles and nods and waits.

Perhaps he is counting coup in some manner. He has played a spade. The
correct countermove is to shoot the moon. “Could you fetch it for me?”
I ask, pointing vaguely at the stock behind the counter. Bonus point
for the explicit customer-server relationship.

He does this. He rings it up. “You know, it has Keanu’s voice,” he
says. This is a lie.

“I have read that it does not,” I reply, as if offering an interesting
dilemma for us to contemplate. This is literally true, but in
intonation a lie, since I am actually calling him a liar, not entering
a discussion.

“I played it. It sounds like his voice,” he says.

“You mean unemotional, like a bad actor?” Point for snark. By this
point we have completed the dance of money exchange, so we both offer
the humorous snort of conversation-ending, and I leave.

I don’t have any idea what the hell New Face was thinking. As far as
I’m concerned, I came out two points ahead, plus I played cooperate
when he was trying to defect — and still got what I came for — which
trumps the round. For all I know, he thinks I’m an oblivious idiot and
he scored three plus a “laugh later” bonus. Or maybe he really *does*
think Keanu did the voiceovers. Anything’s possible.