It was Fathers Day here in the UK yesterday, and I just remembered something which happened while I was working in our local small independent record shop 20 years ago.
The day before Fathers Day was one of the busiest days I’d seen in the shop (the busiest was Christmas Eve). It was full of youngish people looking for something to get their dad. If you work in a record shop, you can get an idea that Fathers Day is approaching because of the number of fresh new “Best Classic Rock Songs” style compilation albums which start arriving in the store.
Anyway, on this very busy day, I noticed a young lad – probably late-to-mid-teens – walking around the shop with his phone glued to his ear, looking at various shelves and responding to whoever he was on the phone to (from context, I’m guessing it was probably his mum guiding him). He had been doing this for a while, and I made a mental note to go and ask if he needed help, but we were so busy I couldn’t get away from the counter.
Eventually, there was a temporary lull, and he came to the counter to ask for help. He said to the person on the phone “I’m just going to ask”, then looking to me he said “Is there an album called ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ by a band called ‘Pink Floyd’?” I noticed that he hadn’t asked if we had the album, but if it existed at all. It was tempting to say “Nope, never heard of it”, but I relented, and took him to the point on the shelves where he could pick up probably one of the most famous albums ever made.