There is a record shop near where I live and it is far too cool for school. The feeling I get when going in there is akin to the feeling I get going into a very very posh clothes shop or anything from semi-posh up in restaurants.
They are cool in there, cool music is always blaring out and they all have the arrogant nonchalance of youth that makes me feel 11 again… in a bad way.
I went in once and they pounced on me asking what I was after. As it happened I was after something pretty obscure and therefore cool, though I had no money, I didn’t really want to buy anything, but with the cool CD in my head I figured it’s worth trying to look as cool as they are.
When asked what I was after, however, I didn’t come out with Fantastic Plastic Machine as I’d hoped. Instead the words just stuck on my tongue like a lolloping frog. And for some treason I felt like someones dad in 1982 going into HMV near christmas, and just wanted to ask if they had any Phil Collins, I like him, got a good beat.
Etc.
but today was a day for revenge. I went into the shop with Claire for no real reason again but to try out the coolness. I The boy asked me what I was after, I said Jeffrey Lewis. They said they’d have to check “Who exactly is he?” Ha.
In my head a mocked him for not knowing who jeffrey lewis was but instead I just calmly said, New York lo-fi guitar singer guy, quite cool.
They looked but had nothing in stock, I left with me head held high and my humiliation intact… I had outcooled them.