Dance Dance Revolving Around The Item
I’ve set up a stall in a flea market with a friend, mainly selling old video games that we don’t want anymore. A woman approaches with a couple of kids.
Customer: “How much is the PlayStation 3?”
She gestures vaguely at the table. I have a few PS and PS2 games scattered about, so I assume she is referring to those.
Me: “Oh, the games are [price] each, but those are for PS2. I assume they can run in a—”
Customer: “Not the games! The machine!”
She gestures again, moving her hand over the entire table in an even more vague manner.
Me: “The… machine? What machine?”
Customer: “Are you stupid?! The PlayStation 3 you have right there!”
She finally points at what she is talking about: a big and colourful box on one side of the table, somehow outside of the range she covered with her first two gestures.
Me: “Oh, that? That’s not a PlayStation.”
Customer: “You think I’m stupid?! I know what that is! I was going to give you $100 for it, but now I’ll just pay $80!”
Me: “Ma’am, that is a DDR mat. Y’know, for dancing?”
She just stares at me blankly. My friend and I take the mat out and unfold it on the ground to show her that it is not, in fact, a PlayStation. She stares at it, then at us, then back at the mat.
Finally, her kids seem to have had enough embarrassment for a day and drag her away. Even as they leave, she is still staring at the DDR mat with a perplexed look.
What amazes me the most is not that she apparently had never seen a mat before, or that she confused it with a PS3. It’s that she somehow expected to find one in a flea market by $100… which was about ten USA dollars back then.
And the console had barely been announced.
