Fry's

Fry's is a strange place. All the male workers are dressed in the required uniform of ill-fitting black pants with no belt and a white button-up shirt with no undershirt. (And yes, we can see your nipples.) The Fryettes wear reasonable, if not slightly out of style, business casual attire.

I was never clear on the difference between a nerd and a dork, but everyone who works at Fry's is whichever one of the two is less helpful. I would think the nerds would know about computer parts but have no fashion sense. That would make me a nerd, and make the Fry's guys dorks.

And yet, even with the vast expanses of guy-oriented products and the legions of nipple exposing dorks, Fry's is chocked full of attractive female shoppers. (Maybe not chocked full. They probably just stick next to all the dorks. Like seeing a unicorn at a retarded donkey show.) They aren't always there with boyfriends, in fact many of them come in groups. And I've never seen them buy anything, so I have no idea what their purpose is. Maybe there are organized tours of the way men spend money.

"On your left you'll see oscilloscopes. No one buys oscilloscopes, but guys like to look at them and pretend they know how to use them. Take for example this guy in the bright orange hat. Well, actually, he may have an EE Degree. Yes, he seems to know how to set the voltage scale."

"On your right we have candy. Computer nerds need candy to keep their energy up while they play their newly purchased First Person Shooters."

Luckily the workers at Fry's can't tell the difference between a "manufacturer defect" and a "Mike screwed up the system restore by installing XP professional." So with the money making it's way back to my card, my next try at a Pro Tools friendly computer will come from Costco, home of the 6 month return policy, more attractive shoppers, and food samples. Mmmm, food samples.