On the road last week, Ava, Jess, Wally and C.I. stopped a small store, part of a corporate chain. Jess, who is a huge fan of the Cowboy Junkies (we all are), found a five track disc entitled 'neath your covers part 1. There was no price on it. He took the disc to the counter to inquire about the price. The clerk noted there was no bar code on it.
"We can't sell it to you."
Jess offered twenty bucks, pointing out it was a 5 track disc.
"We can't sell it to you."
Not only did they refuse to sell it, they didn't hand it back. Jess goes over to Wally, Ava and C.I. to tell them about it.
"What a ___. Did you go over his head and ask for the manager?"
He was the manager.
C.I. explained that it was a bonus disc released with the Cowboy Junkies' One Soul CD. We should note here that Jess is a huge Neil Young fan and one of the tracks on the EP was a cover of Neil Young's "Helpless." Also covered was Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road," The Cure's "Seventeen Seconds," the Youngbloods' "Darkness, Darkness" and Towne Van Zandt's "Lungs."
There was no One Soul in the racks. There were three other copies of 'neath your covers part 1. None had a bar code on it. That was because none were supposed to be sold. It was a bonus when you bought One Soul. (For anyone wondering, they also didn't have the Cowboy Junkies' latest CD, at the end of paths taken. They only had one of those best of, millennium collections and the three copies of the EP, all unmarked.)
One said, they shouldn't stock merchandise if they're not going to sell it. One said, I'm tempted to put it under my shirt. C.I. said, it would be better to get the clerk & manager to ring us up and sack the EPs.
Ava agreed and noted, "If they're not selling it, they shouldn't stock it."
ROCK SOUND "MUSIC WITH ATTITUDE." That's a magazine. It's offering a bonus disc (and posters! Most of all, it's offering a CD in a paper case on the front. Taking off that CD and putting the Cowboy Junkies CD on the cover, they were good to go.
At which point, Wally says, "Man, I wanted a copy of that!" C.I.'s reply was a hissed, "Do you know how hard it was to get this one to stick on the magazine?"
But there they were, casually pulling off the CD freebie to substitute . . . a CD freebie. It was planned as a bonus and the store had obviously not sold it with One Soul (as it was supposed to). The store had four in stock (one held by the manager, three on the racks). One Soul came out in 2004. They've had three years to figure this out. Jess offered them 20 bucks for one copy. The store wasn't interested.
So they headed to the counter with twelve magazines, two of which were ROCK SOUND, as well as a CD they'd found for Jim (which they were paying for). The clerk (also manager) who'd been rude and surly to Jess was suddenly all smiles as the plastic came out. He couldn't stop chatting with them about the weather as he rang up and sacked the purchases.
When they got back home Friday, they played the CD and we've listened nonstop. It wasn't until we were working on another feature that they shared this story.
The late and great Clamor once did a feature article where people shared their experience stealing something. We're a rather boring crowd in that regard. Dona once stole a pack of gum in first grade and showed it to her mother after (not in a I-was-bad way) and they had to march right back into the store, return the gum, apologize privately to the manager and, at the insistence of her mother, go up to the checkout lanes and confess publicly what she had done. "Humiliating, yes," she says, "but I never swiped anything again."
As we learned about the Cowboy Junkies EP story, Dona shared that and we thought that was it. Until Rebecca said, "I had a huge crush/heavy lust on Kurt Cobain in 1991. Ask C.I. what happened?" Rebecca wanted a display that was going to be tossed in the trash. She asked about it and was told, "We're not allowed to sell them. Next."
"For whatever reason, I wanted that and was furious." She was with C.I. and the display left with them. On another story Rebecca steered us to from decades ago, Elaine and C.I. clam up except to note that it was information that needed liberating, not merchandise, and this wasn't a store. So they helped liberate it.
Cedric insists we put in this "Kids don't try this at home" note. What would have happened if, after paying and beginning to leave the store, they'd have been stopped? C.I.: "I would have been on the phone to one of the corporations' vice-presidents, someone I've known for 15 years, explaining they had four copies of it on the racks, no price on it, and that they refused to sell it, a freebie, even when they had been offered twenty bucks. That explanation wouldn't have been to avoid the trouble, the call alone would have taken care of that, but it would put the store manager in trouble for not ensuring that the store did inventory regularly and for refusing to sell stocked merchandise."
So, while we applaud this act of liberation, we also caution that unless you've got someone in corporate you can call, follow that example at your own risk.