Customer of the day

Today has been a pretty average day in shop in terms of customers, one outstanding gentleman won the customer of the day trophy. He made an entrance not once or twice but three times throughout the duration of the day.
It was an overcast morning which meant it didn't have the bite in the air that usually has me rugged up in as many layers as is appropriate for me to still be able to move relatively normally.
We had only just opened and a short older man with scruffy grey hair shoved under a hat with his dirty jacket hanging off one shoulder, one hand gripping on to an old calico bag, the other swinging by his side when he walked, was lingering in the doorway looking at the phones on display in one of the side windows.
He came in and I said "Hi how you going?" which when I write it down, sounds extremely bogan, I guess I have dissolved my speech to help the local folk feel comfortable in the shop. No response. So I try again "Good Morning, how are you?" Nothing, "uhm (slight cough) can I help you?"
"Hi, you wouldn't have Saturday nights lotto numbers?" He pulled out a little notebook ready to write them down as if I was going to read them out for him. I printed out the results from the terminal and handed them to him for him to take. He seemed surprised and happy with the fact that it was printed out for him.
He took it outside and stood leaning on the rubbish bin for 5 minutes, presumably checking his numbers?

Take two, later that afternoon he comes flying into the shop with no time for me to say hi, he says in quickly, "How much is your cheapest phone?"
I could see he was in a flap so I decided to keep it short and sweet "$79."
I waited.
Then a fast tirade of gibberish, slosh, abuse and angst came out so quickly that it is difficult to understand what exactly he was going on about.
From what I could understand he had been down at the post office trying to sort out an issue he had with the telephone service in "this dump of a town."
You see he had a Nokia phone that worked perfectly at the other dump of a town, which isn't too far from here (from my understanding this was where he usually resided, which is an hour away from here), however he wasn't able to get his phone to work here.
Apparently he had managed to arrange for the telephone company to call him tomorrow, (which I found amusing since his phone didn't work here) and that it was an absolute disgrace that you couldn't use your phone to call anyone while you were in Dellaren but when he was in the other town, Dead Mans Gully, he was able to ring people in Dellaren. It was all too much for him, so he was going to speak to his contacts in the Government and "mark my word" he would have it sorted out so that his phone would work here in the future.
I asked him if he would like to know why his didn't work here, he said that he would so I explained it to him, which I think he listened to but didn't understand.
He must have thought it was a massive conspiracy, this gentleman was of the highest notoriety because he received a letter of commendation for his work with the Aboriginal people, helping them with their abuse of drugs and alcohol, he didn't tell anyone about his work, but someone must have said something because he got this letter, so he was going to contact his people in the government and get it all sorted out.
Now I did not find this very amusing at the time because I was tired and a bit over it all, but it really is quite incredible, you really can't help some people, and I hadn't quite realised that this bloke was on another planet.
I am not a massive fan of Dellaren but when someone openly slanders the place you live it is difficult not to be a little off put by it, I said to him if you don't like it, you don't have to stay here. I was defending the town for the locals I can't stand because I know how much they love it here.
To which I received another slur of words about how he was here to help the Aboriginals with their problems, I think they would more than likely tell him where to go. He left the shop muttering under his breath.

Take three. Later that evening he returns, wanting to know if I sell a portable radio that didn't cost a million dollars, I showed him a Walkman which he seemed quite interested in...until he discovered that it didn't plug into the wall. Go figure.
I then showed him a clock radio that plugged into the wall, which he liked but it couldn't play a cassette so he didn't want it.
"I can't help you, go and try at Edmunds"
He was very friendly then and said he had been told by the ladies at the supermarket to try there, but then he couldn't remember if he had already asked at Edmunds.
I just said to him again that I couldn't help him, so off he went into the night and that was the last I heard of him...for today anyway.

Yesterday the winner was an obese foreigner who was looking around the shop in a dirty white bonds singlet, with chest hair spilling out the sides, and his gut hanging out the bottom. He was poking around for a while with his colleagues before coming up to me asking, "how much is dis?" holding out a stubby holder printed with the Australian flag. I said, "$3.95."
He turned away from me and retorted with a loud exhaling through his nostrils, I was already annoyed at them from the manner in which they poked about the shop so I replied "do you think that is expensive?"
He said "yes." So I plainly said to him, in a polite voice, to try buying one from somewhere else! He put it back and left the shop.
I know from experience stubby holders elsewhere can cost anywhere from $6.95 upwards, so to say I was put out by the fact he thought it was expensive is an understatement, I didn't care if he bought it or not, I just couldn't believe what had just happened, how much did he think it was worth?
I should be able to laugh at the stupidity of it all but for today and yesterday I am a little beyond tired.