I collect tacky keychains. It’s a pretty fun hobby, because whenever someone goes on vacation, they have an excuse to go in all the tourist traps, searching for the IDEAL piece of trash for me.
And everywhere has tacky keychains. The Louvre? Has tacky keychains. The nicest shrines in Japan? You can get tacky keychains. Grand Canyon? The teenage clerk tried to talk me out of buying a tacky keychain. (”The boss put these up front, cause they weren’t selling. We have better ones over by the windows?”)
And theme parks always have great tacky keychains.
So when a previous boss was passing through Tennessee, she realized she was going right past Dollywood and decided to stop by and see if she could find me one. The park itself was closed at the time, but a lot of parks have little stores that pop up around them to sell to the tourists.
She found a convenience store across the way and went in. A quick search turned up some shirts and postcards, but no keychains. She grabbed a bag of chips and a Diet Coke from the cooler, and went to the cashier. The clerk scanned the bottle of soda first, and as he was ringing her up, she told him why she was there. SOOOOO close to Dollywood, she’d been hoping that they might have a tacky keychain? For a friend?
And the clerk reached across the counter, took the open bottle of Diet Coke out of her hand, dropped it in the trash can next to him, and gave her what she described as ‘the coldest look I’ve ever been subjected to in my life.’
“Round here,” he said, dead serious, “We don’t talk like that ‘bout Miss Parton.”
My boss stood there, just confused, until it sank in that this man was no longer interested in selling her anything. She left quietly. And very, very quickly.
And yeah. We don’t talk like that ‘bout Miss Parton.
titsay
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izzy806
kianamaiart
stormborns
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