So, yesterday, the day after the Blizzard of 2005,I was
scheduled to work a noon to 9pm shift. I went out around 10:30
am to start digging out my car, little realizing my landlord's
plower had left about a 9ft patch of snow behind all the cars,
apparently not wanting to get too close and hit one. Another
tenant was already working on his car next to mine,and we struck
up a conversation. I thought to myself somewhat facetiously that
this was a good thing, because if I had a massive heart attack
from shoveling at least there was someone nearby.
Then my new friend told me he'd be right back, he needed to
get himself another beer.
10:45 a. m. and he's drank at least one beer, about to pop
another, and he's about my age.
I then had this vision of TWO middle aged men having heart
attacks simultaneously.
Eventually, I got myself shoveled out and away I went to work.
The main street outside my apartment was ok, but the others were
poor until I reached Rte 37, and even that was not at it's best.
Side roads are still mostly not bare and the snowbanks at the
street corners are a hazard to seeing oncoming traffic.
I reached work on time and then the real fun began.It was a
slow day as one might expect but on such days the more..umm..
unique customers tend to appear. I had a few, including the
pair I think of as The Russian Classical Imposers.
The Imposers are in fact two Russians, a middle aged woman
and her elderly father. They might show up in the store once or
twice a year looking for a cd with a Russian opera performer
whose name the woman usually cannot recall entirely.Yesterday,
the search was for a singer named Nicholi(or something close to
that in spelling) and whose last name sounded like Gurov.
I asked the lady if she knew how it was spelled and she said
no,so I began a computer search for Nicholi or Nicholai or any
other variation of the name I could think of trying.
No luck.
I asked if they knew how the last name was spelled. This started
what I was afraid would happen from the last time I'd waited on them:
a conversation in Russian with the father with much gesturing,a few
guttural words I am sure meant no nice thing, and a disdainful glance
at my pitifully ignorant Americanski self. At any rate when the flood
subsided he wrote out on a piece of paper how he thought the name
was spelled.
In the Russian Cyrillic alphabet.
After the daughter translated it into English, we tried Guryov,
Guriev, Guryev, ..and so on. Finally, I had to tell them I could
find no such artist and perhaps he wasn't available in the US.
A half hour later, I was walking off the sales floor for my
lunch break and stopped as I oculd hear someone calling "Sir! Sir!"
behind me. The father had found the artist as a performer on some
music collection. Nikalai Guriaff. (I think.It's all a haze now)
I nodded, told them that I was on my lunch break and if they
went back to customer services whoever was there would help them and
then I walked as fast as I could without looking like I was running
to the break room.
If I'd spent another 45 minutes with the Imposers, the American
and Russian post iron curtain detente might have gone "Pfffft"!
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