So I think I'll take the door and see that Gimbels' is showing

Good afternoon, sir, and did you find --- oh dear.

No, I don't know exactly the time. I'm not guessing ... the store opens at 10 am, and I've been right here seven hours, so ---

Well, yes, I wasn't right here every moment. Yes, lunch and bathroom breaks ---

I'm confident saying it's afternoon because we don't have Temporal Cole Slaw. No, and not Temporal --- look, if you want it to be the morning fine, have a good morning. I don't need one.

( Because I felt like writing a Newhart-ish monologue, that's why.  )

Trivia: Chicago's Fair department store rang up sales of 40,000 live frogs one season in the 1910s. Source: Service And Style: How The American Department Store Fashioned The Middle Class, Jan Whitaker.

Currently Reading: Conspiracy: How The Paranoid Style Flourishes And Where It Comes From, Daniel Pipes.