Most sportswriters suck. They’re either dumb ex-jocks or stat-happy geeks–both groups of people who are inherently incapable of writing. Perhaps the greatest exception to that rule is the hilarious Bill Simmons. He’s a Boston guy, too, Dave, you’d love him.

Anyway, one of Bill’s trademarks is doing running diaries of big games, drafts (including yesterday’s NBA draft), etc. Thanks to Bill, you guys now get “A Day at an Indie CD Store,” the unnamed record store I work at. Now a day at an independent record store may not feature as much dashing attire as the NBA Draft, but I’m working the store by myself all day, so I need something to entertain me.

10:52 – Open the store. A woman immediately pokes her head in to complain that the doggie water bowl we keep in front of the store is empty. She didn’t have a dog with her, but I manage to fight the urge to tell her that she can come in and drink from our water fountain if she wants.

11:03 – Fill the doggie water bowl begrudgingly

11:10 – In a highly auspicious encounter, the first customer of the day buys a CD by His Holiness John Coltrane. I do a Tiger Woods fist-pump as soon as she leaves.

11:15 – Scuzzy looking twenty-something comes in, slams a staple-gun down on the counter and shouts “I want to buy Guns ‘n’ Roses!” My instinct is to beg for my life and give him all the money in the register, but I work up the nerve to lead him over to the “G” section.

11:30 – Let’s play the WWWD Game. For the uninitiated, that’s “What Would Warren Do?” Warren is the excessively grouchy and absolutely politically incorrect owner of our fine record dealership.

11:32 – Woman with a buzz cut walks in. Warren would whisper, “There are too many lesbians in this damn city.”

11:37 – Woman buys an Indigo Girls CD. Warren would whisper, “See, I was right,” as he believes everyone who buys an Indigo Girls is homosexual. She did, however, accept a bag when offered. According to Warren, every black customer accepts a bag and every lesbian refuses. Had he been here, his head would have exploded. Don’t even ask how he explains black lesbians.

11:39 – Grachan Moncur III is a great trombonist, but whoever told him he can sing must have been playing a cruel joke. Inner Cry Blues is a good record, though.

11:50 – Customer buys a CD called “Great African-American Gospel.” Its sequel, “Great Caucasian Gospel” is due in stores soon.

11:53 – Customer: “All I want is this one song by Pat Metheny, but I hate buying a CD for just one song with a bunch of bad songs. All of his songs sound the same to me. [Sigh] So I guess I can’t go wrong.” She looked just like Sebastian’s mom.

11:57 – Same woman pulls a CD off of our listening station and asks “Is there any way I can listen to this?”

12:24 – Hipster with slicked back hair, drinking coke out of a QT Big Gulp starts talking to me about Jay Reatard. I smugly tell him I have the “Hammer I Miss You” seven inch. “On Goner?!?!” he gasps, “will you sell it to me?” I tell him no and offer him the Reatard singles comp on CD. He says, “CDs are dead!” and storms out. I think there was rum in that coke. What was he doing out of his natural habitat anyway?

12:28 – At last Friday’s in-store show, someone must have spilled beer in our “give a penny/take a penny” thing. All the pennies are stuck together. Kinda cool.

12:47 – Purchase, all on vinyl: Budos Band, a Tribe Called Quest, HH John Coltrane, Miles Davis. My inner music snob gave the guy a blow job.

1:03 – Oh my god new UPS driver.

1:24 – A 90-year-old woman who undoubtedly wants a classical piece whose composer she doesn’t know just walked in the store. If you don’t get any more updates, it’s because I killed myself…

1:47 – Turns out she did know the composer, but not the work. Which is a bit of a problem when that composer has done 486 pieces. Her, um, babysitter finally shepherded her along after we looked at the first 84 or so. Then we had to look up an Australian Aborigine singer that she’d tried to look up 6,000 times before. Persistence counts for something. I guess.

2:12 – Sniveling indie kid buys Fleet Foxes tickets, an Iron & Wine LP, and a Bright Eyes CD. I offer him a free pair of testicles, but he declines, saying he had them removed so he could wear his pants as tight as possible and hit high notes like Jonsi

2:38 – A blind man walks in: “I want this disc from this comedian. He was real short and fat.” I ask for a more concrete description and he can’t give one. Disappointed, the man asks for George Carlin.

2:40 – Blind man: “JEWISH! He was JEWISH! Lord he was funny though.”

2:45 – Wait how did he know the comedian was short and fat?

3:13 – Okay I guess if you want to spend $23 on that Neil Diamond CD, I can’t stop you.

3:24 – Call the people who special-ordered CDs. Today’s highlight: “Is this Danny?” “No. Who’s calling? ” “Independent CD Store. Can you tell Danny his Osibisa CD has come in at Independent CD Store.” “Oh this is Danny, I’ll be right over.” Paranoia, America’s new favorite past time.

4:13 – If you’re scoring at home, that’s HH John Coltrane 3, Coldplay 0 today at Independent CD Store. But if you’re sitting at home scoring blog posts, you should probably reconsider a thing or two about your life.

4:44 – Ahhh are we going to run out of amos lee nooooooooo

5:11 – Austin arrives. Hunh. Guess I’m not working all day by myself after all. At some point later, I will make fun of Austin for how little jazz he listens to. Next, I will lick my Giuseppi Logan special order that came in today.

5:37 – Rushing to get the order in because I’ve spent too much time blogging, I’m distracted by a drunk dude pestering me about…Jethro Tull. You know how when you get drunk and fuck an ugly person, you wake up and think, “Oh no what have I done!” Imagine that but ten times worse and you’ll know how this guy’s gonna feel tomorrow.

6:08 – Submit order. Store’s empty.

6:24 – Store’s still empty. I’m currently talking to the Bruce Springsteen lightbox.

7:22 – I take a phone order for Skyy Line. In addition to not knowing what record store she had called, the woman on the phone delivered the classic line, “Now I’m not talking about no rock band, boo” and proceeded to call me “Boo” throughout the entire conversation.

7:58 – Made fun of Austin for not listening to jazz. Filled doggie bowl again.

8:04 – Austin leaves. I am alone again. Trapped with only a cardboard cutout of Michael Buble to keep my company. oooh the braves are on.

8:15 – Customer attempting to be a gentleman by opening the door for his lady throws the door open and knocks over all the Creative Loafing magazines. She apologizes for him and they bicker before retreating to separate listening stations.

8:16 – I will not talk about what Jair Jurrjens is doing right now.

8:21 – Jinxed it! I knew I would jinx it!

8:35 – Sell a Fairport Convention CD by playing it. The voice of Sandy Denny works its magic yet again. I’m ecstatic!

8:45 – Rio calls. Rio is famous for getting drunk and buying CDs. Should we be worried about Rio drinking and driving? Nah, because, Rio is, in his own words “driving and drinking.” He asks me for Robert Johnson, we we of course have. He begs me to leave the store open and I agree if only because we are PACKED.

9:03 – closing time technically but we have FIFTEEN people in the store, but no Rio…yet.

9:12 – Rio shows up in an orange tank top and boxers, absolutely blitzed. I guess he expected the store to be empty, but…not quite. Rio personally greets each customer in the store and tells them how much his wife loves our bags. Awesome.

9:23 -last customer leaves. Coldplay made a late push, but our final score…HH John Coltrane 4, Coldplay 3.