Jacob's Unique Sales Approach

The first week we opened Jacob was revising for SATs. The second week, free of such constraints, he has emerged from his studies and made the occasional appearance downstairs lured by the opportunity to make cash. This is necessary because he has a newly discovered fetish for 'vinyl' (he's been rifling through our attic in an indiscriminate search for such treasures) and is fixated on purchasing a 'vinyl player'.

Early visitors that second weekend would have found him clamped to his exhibits, eyeing them (visitors and his work) expectantly. Or they may have noticed him rearranging the art in the browsers so that his were the most prominent. In this, I suspect, there may have been a bit of a cold war developing between him and PMT.

After a while though, he must have decided on a sales tactic. This was somewhat unnerving for our guests. Jacob is tall for his age, around 5' 10", and of late he has been cultivating what he assumes is a rock-star/artist look - complete with extremely tight black jeans and pointy shoes. His slightly greasy hair falls none too neatly across his forehead, covering one eye and he has the beginnings of a moustache that, from afar, looks as if it might be a smear of grime. Mercifully, at present there are no spots.

His chosen sales approach involves rounding on his targets, hovering (a bit too close) behind them and then lurching forward. The lurch usually is accompanied by a grunt - intended to be a friendly greeting - that sometimes comes out all wrong. If you've not seen it coming, as one visitor hadn't, really it is quite alarming ... I assume it's akin to confronting an indecisive stalker. Needless to say, most of Jacob's sales are accomplished when he's not there.