Good times at Kinko's

With our winter concerts looming, I figured it was high time to have my nice Watkins Shaw Messiah score spiral bound and given black covers, as the orange covers just don't do it on stage. I left the house a bit early to run to Kinko's before work, and even thought to remove my paperclips before I brought the score inside.

That's when the fun began.

I should have known something was amiss when I stood at the counter, being eyeballed by this lunkhead in the back of the store, for three minutes before he finally sidled up and asked if I needed some help. "Yes," I replied, trying to limit my annoyance to a slightly curt edge in my voice, "I need to have this spiral bound and given black covers."

He looked at me as if I were speaking French. "Spiral bound?"

"Yes, my director said you could do it here."

The score lay on the desk between us, the illustration seeming to glare balefully at Lunkhead. He picked it up and walked off to talk to his supervisor about how one would accomplish this miraculous feat (cut the binding off and spiral-punch it), how much it would cost ($6 and change; I did the math while he still thought it was $5), and what size covers one would use (8.5 x 11, though the score is slightly narrower).

By this time, I had realized that Lunkhead was actually Trainee Lunkhead, who not only had the speed, grace, and intelligence of a turnip, but also had no idea what he was doing. While his bosses (yes, he needed two people to help him with this most difficult of projects) worked out the details, he began to enter the numbers at the register to put in my work order. At one point, he picked up the score, noted that the front and back covers were identical, and asked me how to tell which way it opened.

I demonstrated. What I didn't tell him was "Look, moron, in the English-speaking world, books tend to be left-bound," as I had by then spent ten minutes at the Kinko's counter and I was most definitely running late for work.

Finally, his immediate supervisor (Dawn, associate since 2006) came over to help him finish the work order. "Did you get her phone number?" she asked.

"No, I got her name," replied Lunkhead. He then tried to look me up in the system, but failed, either because A) it's been years since I've put in a work order at Kinko's, or B) he couldn't spell my name. You know, the name I'd already spelled for him.

At this point, Dawn said he'd have to create a new customer. "L-a-r-e-n?" he asked.

"L-a-u-r-e-n," I sighed, fighting the urge to leap the counter in my dress and knee-high boots and do it myself.

"L-a-r-e-n," he muttered under his breath as he entered my information. He then had to retype my phone number, as he neglected to add the area code first. You know, the default area code. I wasn't trying to make his life difficult with my British phone or anything.

Eventually, after fifteen friggin' minutes at the counter, he got me into the system and my poor score off to be butchered. At this point, Dawn, who had stood over him as he typed, told him to hold out his hands. She then proceeded to smack one and said, "This is for entering an order at the main register."

"So...I can pick it up this afternoon?" I asked. Dawn nodded, and I hastily made my exit before Lunkhead could come up with any further questions.

I'm all for trainees - I've been there, and I'll be there again - but God, why would you have a trainee on the front desk in on a weekday morning?

Postscript: I saw Lunkhead at the counter again that afternoon. He vaguely recalled something about the order when I told him what I needed, then produced my score, mercifully bound correctly. No one at that Kinko's will ever find me in the system again, however, as my name, according to Lunkhead, is Laruren.