THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 9, 1994 TAG: 9409090845
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CARA YANISKO, HIGH SCHOOL CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
IT'S HARD TO believe that summer is over, school has started and teachers everywhere are asking us to write a papers titled ``How I spent my summer.''
Where did I spend my summer? At the beach. But I wasn't working on my tan. I spent all those sunny summer days working at an Oceanfront souvenir shop.
I'll write that Working at the beach shops doesn't take too much skill. You just have to know your lines - ``Yes, I do work here,'' and ``No, we don't have a public rest room.''
I'll also write that These past three months have taught me a lot, but I've decided it all comes down to two basic truths:
TOURISTS WILL BUY ANYTHING.
As shoppers walk down the strip, little do they know, the bait has been set. Neon signs read: RAFTS, T-SHIRTS, SOUVENIRS! And they can't resist. Theshoppers are lured into each and every store.
Most tourists come for one thing - something that has the words Virginia Beach plastered all over it. And they've come to the right place. Everything at the beach does.
From rafts to baby clothes to shells, it says ``Virginia Beach.''
Shells are huge sellers. Even though I worked at the Oceanfront for the entire summer, it amazes me how many things can be made out of shells. Shell animals, shell place mats, even shell insects. Then there's my favorite - sand and shells in a Tums bottle. It's true. Someone poured sand and a few shells in an empty Tums bottle, ripped off the label and is selling it for $4.95 a pop. The person who made this brilliant product is probably the same genius who stuck a magnet on the back of a shell, painted Virginia Beach on it and sold it for $3.95.
I guess tourists just want a little something to show off where they have been.
Even if they haven't been there. The store I worked in received a wrong shipment - a box full of shirts that read ``Ft. Lauderdale, Fun in the Sun.'' We thought we were stuck with a bunch of junk shirts. But we decided, ``Hey, why not mark the price down and see if they sell.''
People bought them.
I have no idea why, but the Florida shirts were a hit.
Maybe it is just so they can brag to their friends about where they've been (or in some cases, haven't been), but whatever the case, tourists will go out of their way to get their souvenirs. Which brings me to my second conclusion:
TOURISTS NEVER QUIT.
It's 11:59. We close in one minute, and the doors are open just wide enough so we can slip out, a hint to the Saturday night shoppers that their time is up.
Finally, it's midnight. All the workers in the store sigh with relief. It's been a long day. But before we can ease out the door, a family of five eager shoppers squeezes through the barely 1-foot space left open by the sliding glass doors.
The ``Thank-God-we-get-to-go-home-and-sleep-now'' smiles on our faces freeze and melt to dropped jaws of ``Oh no, not again.''
Beach shoppers never stop shopping. Where they get the energy, only they know. But Oceanfront shoppers are like the Energizer Bunny - they keep going.
Time is ticking away, and our attempt at sending our customers subliminal messages (``We're closed! We're closed!) has not worked.
So, we turn off the radio, another subtle hint. Nice try on our part. These customers don't mind shopping in silence.
OK, so we go for the not-so-subtle-hint of turning off some lights. It's not working. How convenient that the only people who can shop in silence and darkness have wandered into our store.
None of us wants to be rude, but somebody has to do it. This is when the intercom system comes in handy.
``Attention (Kmart) shoppers, we're running on borrowed time here. We've been closed for 15 minutes now. Please bring any purchases to the front counter.''
Finally, they make their way to the register, where they spot the Tums bottle full of sand. They buy two.
``Oh, it's 12:20 already,'' they say, ``Boy, time sure does fly.''
Yea, sure it does.
Tomorrow, we decide, we'll just close the doors completely at midnight. MEMO: Cara Yanisko is a senior at Princess Anne High School.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Cara Yanisko
by CNB