Had two completely different experiences.
The first, Hub Comics*, is right down the street from the old house, and UJ (who I was visiting with this morning). I'd been messaging with one of the employees there about subscriptions and prepaying so that they'll hold my book longer than a few days if I can't get in right away to pick it up (Chronic Illness and deadlines: we do not coexist well!) The guy was super nice about it, and when I went in today, even though there were two different guys, everything seemed to work out fine. Although... now that I'm thinking about it, I didn't prepay for the next issue, which is what I meant to do, and brain fog why do I take you places?!?!? Damn it. OK, well: I'll have to pick that issue up right away, and prepay while I'm in there, but anyways: the guys were nice and help set me up with my subscriptions. They let me browse without imposing or being weird or pushy. Only issue I had was a) two steps, which is not optimal in the chair (must fix accessibility, Hub Comics people!) and b) dogs came in for biscuits which was really cute but not good for my whole 'let's remain breathing' portion of the afternoon. Luckily, after obtaining said biscuit, doggy and owner quickly left, or else I might have had to. But, overall, totally positive experience.
But they didn't have one of the books I was looking for, so I headed to the Meadow Glen Mall (which is not a hoity toity mall, trust me) and Harrison's Comics (which I did not know had another location: note to self). So here's a thing I did not like: Wednesday is new comics day (as you may or may not know), and they had all the new comics out on the wall, with signs that said "Not for sale till tomorrow." I am not a huge comic book store person, so I did not realize that "not for sale" also meant "you can't touch these" till tomorrow, and when I went to touch one of them (Did you know Castle has a comic book? I did not! And now I have to find out more about it, because, is Nathan Fillion drawn in it? Because... must make it mine, if so.) and when I went to pick it up, the guy bit my head off! "Miss! Those are not for sale till tomorrow!" (He only get's 1/2 a point for barking Miss instead of Ma'am. I'll give him that, anyways.)
Now, I am socially awkward enough in places where I am not ... super confident. (Ok, so that is technically everywhere, except for ... say the library: confident. I know the rules there!) And comic book stores tend to be (for me) intimidating anyways, because I'm new to comics and there's so much that I don't know. And when the guy yelled at me? I wanted to die. I mean literally, I am 33 years old: I have no idea how old the guy was (because I never looked at his face because I was bright red the entire rest of the time I was in the store, which was all filler time of me thinking "how fast can I get out of here without it looking like I am running away because this guy snapped at me?"), but I felt about 7, getting caught shoplifting or something equally horrible. I do not like to be reprimanded. I am so bad at it. And all I did was ALMOST touch a comic that wasn't for sale yet. So I just sort of slunk up and down the aisles for another five minutes, all beat red, hoping that the other guy would take the register so that I could check out with him, but no such luck. I mean, I get that it's the policy of the shop, but if you have 25 signs that all say "Not for sale till tomorrow," maybe, for the sake of the newbies like me, at least one of them should say "which means you can't even look at them even though they are on open shelves just like everything else in here." For the sake of my blushing cheeks, anyways.
And yes, I know that some of this is just me being totally awkward and why do you even care what he thinks, but still... clearer signs for people who don't know all the rules would still be nice. And less snapping, even if you probably have to tell people not to touch about 17 million times every Tuesday. (which might be prevented by clearer signs, just FYI.) Definitely a less positive experience, and they didn't have the book I was looking for either (although I did pick up a Women of Marvel poster book which looks super cool. (Just wondering, comic book people - do you not take those apart to get the posters? Because I'm totally going to take them apart for the posters, but it also seems kind of sacrilegious because it's a book....)
But look at me, out and about, going to places where I'm totally not comfortable. Didn't ask about game nights though - which I heard they have around here somewhere, at Hub because I forgot (oh Fibro Fog, seriously? You are screwing up my whole day - I thought I'd done pretty well!) and at Harrison because Hells No, my face was on fire, are you kidding me? Oh well: there's always next month**
*Also please note their super adorable signage: Love. :)
**Hub's website says Tuesday nights from 5-9. Tonight was Tuesday: why didn't I wait a few hours? Next time, Fibro Fog: no forgetting.
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