Nothing to See Here!
My friend was having a small get-together for his birthday this afternoon; unfortunately, the invitation ended up in my spam folder, so I didn't learn about the party until last night.
Still, I wanted to at least get him a small gift rather than showing up to the party empty-handed. After racking my brain for a bit, I realized that he and his wife would probably enjoy playing the card game Bandido. I didn't have enough time to travel all the way to DC's Labyrinth Boardgame Shop, but supposedly there was another boardgame shop a short walking distance from my apartment. The shop was always closed whenever I tried to visit, but perhaps luck would be on my side this time!
As I walked up to the store, I was disheartened to see the "CLOSED" sign on the door; however, an employee was apparently just finishing his smoking break out front. I asked him if the store was open, and he replied with a welcoming "Yeah, sure, whatever". I'm not convinced that he held the door open for me, but I did manage to slip into the store behind him nevertheless.
Once inside, he immediately disappeared into the back room (which, weirdly, appeared to be much larger than the rest of the store). I searched the handful of shelves for a copy of Bandido; but alas, I was unable to locate one. Despite the fact that half of the shelves contained nothing except very expensive expansions to Settlers of Catan, I eventually managed to find 2 games that I thought my friend might enjoy.
Soon afterwards, the employee popped out of the back room again and seemed a bit surprised to see me. His sudden appearance startled me, so I responded with some small talk. I blathered that I had tried to visit the store on 2-3 other occasions, but they were always closed. Oh, and -- "By the way: it looks like you forgot to flip your sign around from CLOSED to OPEN" (Eep -- why did I have to mention that? 🙀).
The employee glanced over at the sign and mumbled "I guess I forgot". He then sauntered over to the door and flipped the sign around.
Wanting to avoid any awkward silence, I asked him if they had any copies of Bandido in the back; he immediately retorted "No!" with the confidence of someone who had been asked the same question 1000 times. Undeterred, I asked him if he could recommend any similar types of card games. He then proceeded to browse the minuscule store for what might have been the first time in his entire life. After exploring the shelves for a few moments, he noticed some packs of Magic: The Gathering cards in the corner and exclaimed "Oh --- I know people buy these!".
(FYI: Magic: The Gathering is an entire lifestyle, not a quick pick-up-and-play card game like Bandido)
Anyway, I decided not to press the matter any further, and I let him know that I had narrowed my choice down to 2 options. To my astonishment, he then said: "You know what? Why don't we just do a buy-one-get-one-free?". He then scanned both items and discounted one of them by 100%. Not wanting to tempt fate, I paid for the items, thanked him, and left.
As I exited out the door, I noticed that the latch clicked like it was still locked... despite the fact that he had supposedly opened the store a few minutes ago... 😅
So... yeah... nothing to see here! It was definitely just a regular boardgame shop, and nothing suspicious was going on! 😬