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Pretty much my favorite part of working in the porn store was the free porn rentals. I could take a brand new movie home before anyone had wanked off to it and put their jizz covered hands on the DVD discs. I’m selling movies via Edible Ecstasy, but I don’t really want to buy dirty movies… anymore.  So every once in awhile, I go into the old porn store to rent a movie or two.

The place is still pretty much the same. No VHS movies now, like when I started… just DVDs. They carry more gonzo style movies now (where people look into the camera) and less movies with plots for couples. And the porn actresses have always been pretty attractive, but the guys have gotten better looking too.

So after I pick out the dirty movies I want, I take them to the front counter. And I’ve noticed something interesting… most the girls who work there now act like I used to when I was there. And I used to be pretty apathetic and cooler than thou.  And you know what? Those new girls amuse me. When I see them, I just wanna say, “I used to be you. And hopefully you will grow out of that attitude like I did.”  Well, at least I mostly grew out of the attitude ; )

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I never liked to tell people what kind of toys to buy at the porn store. I wasn’t going to know what size toy a person was looking for unless I asked, and that’s a pretty personal question, isn’t it? Sometimes I had women point out really tiny toys and say, “That’s huge!” Other times, women bought really over the top toys. This one 5 foot tall woman bought a huge 12″ realistic dildo. I wasn’t sure how that was going to work without hitting a lung.

Instead of focusing on size, I can tell you about a few of the most popular types of toys at the porn store that I would recommend.. One of the biggest sellers was the Pocket Rocket. It’s small, discreet, and not phallic shaped, which is a plus if your mother-in-law finds it and you need to tell her it’s something else.

Hard plastic vibrators were never very popular at the porn store..Jelly or latex covered ones were really big sellers. I’d recommend a jelly toy that is bendable, like an EZ Bend, because than you can pick how it’s angled.

And probably the most asked about items were the Rabbit and remote controlled vibrating panties. The Rabbit was huge because of the show Sex and the City. People heard about it on HBO, and all hell broke loose. We couldn’t keep them in stock. Now they even have waterproof models of it, which I think is the best route to go when buying any toy.

The vibrating panties were a huge novelty when they came out because they had a remote control that could be used from across a room. That way you could give they remote to someone for the night and let them give you pleasure without even touching you. One of my coworkers wore hers to work one time and left them on all day. Let’s just say she was a happy camper : )

These are still pretty popular, but I found something in my Edible Ecstasy catalog that is works the same, minus the remote. It’s a little magnetic toy that thats called a Panty Pal. It’s much cheaper than the vibrating panties, plus you can wear it with any underwear.

One of these days I’ll post about weirdest toys I sold at the porn store. One of my older posts mentions The Accommodator which should probably be right near the top of that list.

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Customers at the porn store would always ask me what toys they should buy, like I’m going to know what size dildo they want in them or something. Anyway, I would ask them what they were looking for and I’d usually find some good kinky stuff for them.

As a special treat, I’m going to tell you the about the toys I recommended most… I’ll start with the guys. Just don’t ask me how to use them. I had a guy who bought a toy call me up one time and ask how he was supposed to use it. So I rolled my eyes and said, “Add some lube and put your junk in it.” Anyway here we go…

For a cheapy kind of toy that is actually pretty good, I’d say get a Hand Job Stroker. It’s even ribbed for your pleasure, not hers. For something a little more expensive, but not by much, I’d say get something with some moving beads for extra stimulation, like a Beaded Stroke Master.

The coolest toy for guys is the Fleshlight. It looks like a flashlight, but, um, it’s not. You can get interchangeable parts for it, so it can be a mouth, or genitals, or an asshole that looks kinda like a donut. No matter what you get, make sure it’s not too short. Lots of guys’ toys are only 4″ long for some reason.

I was going to try to do men and women’s toys in one post, but laziness just took hold of me. I’ll blog about the ladies toys next time.

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On or around holidays, people would run into the porn store for last minute items. Now the only major holidays the porn stores were geared for were Valentine’s Day and Halloween… that’s it. But, time and time again, people would expect us to have crap for other holidays…

New Year’s:

Customer: “Do you have anything I can wear to the bars? Hat, funky glasses, anything?”

Me: “Not really. How about a sparkly dildo to wear on your head?”

Mardi Gras:

Customer: “Do you have anything I can wear to the bars? Beads so I can see some boobs? Crazy hat? Anything?

Me: “A green and purple stripper boa. Or what about a mardi gras inspired dildo to wear on you head?”

St Patrick’s Day:

Customer: “Do you have anything I can wear to the bars? Green hat, headband, anything?”

Me: I have green stripper boas, green stripper thongs. And hey, how about a green dildo to wear on you head?”

Cinco de Mayo:

Customer: Do you have anything I can wear to the bars? A big sombrero or something?

Me: Not really. How about some Spanish Fly? And I’m not sure what color dildo you’d want to wear on your head.”

Fourth of July:

Customer: Do you have anything I can wear to the bars? Red, white and blue beads, anything?

Me: How about some red and white striped hot pants? And what about a red, white, and blue dildo with stars on it to wear on your head?”

And if you are wondering… yes, I would really answer like that. It was fun to watch people think about the dildo/head thing for a minute. It was my snarky way of telling these people they were in a porn store, not Spencer’s in the mall. Plus, if I was working on a holiday, I needed to get my entertainment any way I could ; )

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People who came to the porn store did some weird things. For one thing, the porn store did not have an after hours drop box for porn movies. However, this did not deter people from trying to use the outdoor trashcan as a drop off point.  So when I came in the porn store, I would check to see if movies were at the top of the trash can. If movies were deep in the trash, those people were just screwed because I wasn’t digging through trash for their mistakes.

Then there were the people who would try to open things. I can understand trying to open a toy to see what it looks like or a lotion to see what it smells like.  But some people would have to open the 3-pack of magazines. They could already see 2 of them, but they really wanted to get in there to see the elusive 3rd one. Then there were the people who tried to open the grab bags. These were 20 bucks for 40 dollars worth of merchandise. I had people who even tried to bribe me to tell them what was in the bags.

One of the locations I worked at had a restroom/dressing room.  This was stupid and whoever designed it this way was naive. Even I know that you don’t give people in a porn store a public restroom. Some people look at the porn then want to wank off in there. And I have no idea why, but I had more than my share of customers take a crap and not flush the toilet. And some didn’t even wipe, which is just too gross for words. I think that says a lot coming from someone who rented out double penetration movies without batting an eye.

Some people would leave their business cards at the front desk for display, usually strippers.  One time this guy left his cards, and I must not have looked too impressed.  He says to me, “What? You don’t think I’m a stripper? I can strip.”  Then he proceeded to whip off his t-shirt and break away workout pants and gyrate around in a neon thong. Honestly, I still wasn’t impressed.

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The porn store I worked at was in a strip mall. Well I actually worked at two different locations, but the one I’m going to tell you about is the strip mall one.  Each of the stores in the strip had a front door and a back door. The back door didn’t realy lead to anything.  There was a 10 foot tall retaining wall and that’s about it.  The porn store was next to a chain pizza place and a dog grooming place in the strip.

One day when I was working, a guy came running through the porn store waving a gun.  He went for the back room, which lead to the back door.  I told him he couldn’t get anywhere through the back door but he didn’t listen.  So the guy goes out the back door and I call the police.

While I’m on the phone, a couple of employees from the pizza place walk in.  Apparently they had just been robbed and the guy ran into my store.  Well guess what? The guy couldn’t go anywhere back there. His only way out was back through one of the stores.

So the pizza guys and I just hung out waiting for this stupid robber to come out one of the front doors in the strip mall until the police came. But the robber stayed put.  The police finally came and none of them seemed too excited about sticking their heads out a back door.  So they hung out in the porn store and waited.  Finally one of them had his fill of looking at the nudie magazines and decided to rouse the robber.  He and another police officer went out the porn and pizza back doors.

Low and behold, the robber runs out of the pet grooming place at the end of the strip mall.  This must have been a flurry of activity for the dogs next door because they began barking like crazy and one dog even got loose.  Of all the things that could happen, the dog starting running after the robber. This freaked the guy out and he kept looking over his shoulder at the dog. He was looking at the dog so much that he wasn’t paying attention to the ground and actually tripped and fell down.  The cops were able to get the robber while he was down and the dog was trying to hump him.

And hey, a couple of police officers bought a few things, but I wasn’t supposed to tell since they were on duty.  Oops.

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The porn store had a strict age policy… no one under 18 allowed. I never understood why people would try to bring their kids into the porn stores. They’d give me all kinds of reasons why they should be able to bring the kiddos in the store… “She won’t remember”, “He’s sleeping”, “My kids won’t know what that stuff is”, “She can go in the bathroom while I look”, “Looking at naked people is natural”, “My kid wants a booby sucker”, and on and on.

Why would someone want to bring their kids into a place that sells smutty magazines, movies with people fucking on the covers, and phallic shaped pieces of plastic? The last thing I would want a young kid to see would be hairy Ron Jeremy on a movie box sucking himself off. Hell, that’s enough to scar an adult, let alone a little kid.

I used to ID anyone who came in the store who looked under 25, just like how they do with cigarettes. And that would really piss some people off. I had a few guys and girls go, “I’m 19 already–Jeez”, like how dare I try to card them. I even carded Birthday Boy Coworker before he started working there. He’s a little high strung, so suffice to say it pissed him off.

So okay, I can understand a teenager wanting to get in the porn store, but not parents trying to bring their little kids in there. How about you? Would you take your young child into a porn place to look at smut with you?

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Saturday night I went to the Record Bar to meet a few friends. You know it’s a good night when it ends with you puking on a street corner like a hobo. Like I said, it was a good night.

When I worked at the porn store, there were a ton of drunk people that came to the store. There were large groups that came in after hitting the bars. And of course their were the bachelor and bachelorette groups that would drive me nuts. And then just the random people who were trashed and would drive to the store to buy crap they would never buy when they were sober.

There used to be this one college couple that would come in after they drinking a few, pick out a few nudie magazines to look at, then sit on the floor and peruse their chosen smut. I would usually let them sit there for awhile before I kicked them out.

This one drunk guy came in during a Chiefs football game and proceeded to yell at me because I didn’t have the game on the radio. He tried to come behind the counter to change the channel so I yelled at him sternly like I was his 3rd grade teacher. He got this wounded puppy dog look on his face and walked out of the store.

Then there were the people who would come in all high and rent porn movies. They would pull out the dvd packages and laugh at the naked people in compromising positions. Anyway, one time this guy didn’t have any cash on him for his movies so he tried to give me a joint as payment. I had to decline because I couldn’t exactly put a joint in my bank deposit for the night, now could I?

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The training at the porn store was not much different than most retail jobs. I had to learn how to display merchandise attractively so it would sell. I had to learn how to make displays out of lingerie, flavored lotion, condoms, and nipple clamps… not as easy as it sounds. Also, I had to rearrange the dildo wall on a regular basis. Since I’m a pretty decent organizer, I always got stuck with redoing that dildo wall, which was a pain in the ass because we had well over a 100 kinds of toys on that damn wall.

Then there was the inventory. Same as any store, except I had to find things in the store by just a name like “Italian Stallion” or “Absolute Force”. Hell, those could be anything, from porn movies to dildos or even herbal supplements. And then there was training on cleaning. When cleaning any shelves, we had to remove all the merchandise, clean off the shelves, then put everything back. Not fun when we sold at least 50 different kinds of flavored lotions and lubes and we kept 10 bottles in stock of each.

The weirdest part of the training was when customers wanted to buy an adult toy, we gave complimentary batteries. But, not only did we give them free batteries, we actually put them in the toys and turned those suckers on. That way we could see if the toys worked before leaving the store. Most people didn’t really care if we turned on their toys, but some were pretty embarrassed. I even had some people leave the store without their battery operated plastic penises when I put the battieries in.

After I’d been there for a few years, the store quit giving away batteries. The higher-ups said it was to save money, but I knew better. They got tired of losing sales when people would run out of the stores red with embarrassment because a porn clerk had stuck some batteries in their naughty toys 😉

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The porn store where I worked had some S & M stuff, but not like a few other stores in the city. I think people into S & M were always disappointed by our selection while regular people were amazed by the same selection. We had a little in the way of leather and rubber wear. but not much. For a few months, I was obsessed with this one outfit that was made of criss-crossed leather straps, but I never bought it. At least I got to try it on a few times.

The store also carried various collars, leashes, handcuffs, bondage straps, canes, and whips, and nipple clamps. We sold tons of the collars that said “slave”, but not as many of the “master” ones… maybe because people can figure out pretty quick who the master was. We also sold penis collars with leashes on them. Hey, if that is what you are into, be my guest.

There was this one dominatrix who would come in with her clients who always tried to make me feel stupid, but it didn’t really work. She would ask how long some of the whips were, then say, “Oh, you wouldn’t know that, would you?”. Um, yes, I would, since the measurements were on the tags. Her clients always paid for the items she was going to use on them.

One night when I was closing up the place, a guy called to ask a question. He had bought some handcuffs from me earlier in the night. He put them on, then put the key in between his teeth so he could get to it easily. But, somehow, he swallowed the key. So he called the store to see if I could bring a key to him. He wanted me to go to some weirdo’s house and unlock him from handcuffs? Give me a break.

I told him that he bought standard issue police handcuffs from me. He could call the police and they would be happy to unlock him. Well, they may not be happy about it, but they could get a laugh. Then asked him if he could get someone to buy some more handcuffs from one of the 24 hours porn stores so he could get a key. He said he didn’t want to tell anyone else. He didn’t want to call the police, didn’t want to call anyone else, and I sure as hell wasn’t coming over, so I told him he could wait until the key passed, then unlock himself. I’m not sure whatever happened to that guy, but I just wonder if he ended up digging through his own shit to find that key.