waiter

My friend stops staring at the record and looks the stranger straight in the eye.

"Get out," he says.

The guy starts to laugh nervously.

We slouchers look over at one another as attentively as slouching people can look at one another. We all seem to be wondering the same thing. "What the …?"

"Get out," my friend says again.

The guy doesn't get it.

We don't get it.

"I'm just … hey, if I did something, man, I mean …"

"Get. Out."

"Okay, man," he says, slinking toward the door. "What's your problem?"

After the stranger leaves, we ask what that was all about.

"I keep one record, just one, in my entire collection for a single purpose," my friend explains. "To weed out the jerks. He picked that record. He had to go."

---

Needless to say, it was astonishing that: A. My friend would have a record he bought for the sole purpose of determining whether he thought someone was worthy of hanging out with; B. He actually just kicked somebody out of his house because that person chose that record; C. I had never picked that record.

You're going to kill me for this, I know, but I no longer remember what record it was.

But it doesn't matter. What matters is this: Downloading doesn't afford the same opportunity to dis and be dissed.

There is nothing quite like that sneer you get from the too-hip-for-words guy behind the counter at an independent record store. The moment goes by quickly, almost imperceptibly, but not quite. It's similar to that fleeting flash of disapproval from a waiter at a fancy restaurant when you mispronounce the wine. "We'll have a bottle of the Voove Clickwat." "Veuve Clicquot? Very good, sir."