Customer: “Do you carry metal paddles?”

Me: “We don’t normally keep them in stock, but one of our suppliers manufactures a really cool one. Here, let me show you.”

[I call up the supplier’s website and click on the link to their impact play items. The first picture to appear is a tableau of two well-developed, scantily-clad men of the homosexual persuasion — one is bent over and grinning seductively back at at the other, who is poised with the paddle in question as if caught mid-swing.]

Me: “…”

Customer: “Everything okay?”

Me: “Hmm? Oh. Yes.” [I point to the man about to get spanked.] “It’s just that I know that guy.”

Customer: “…”

Me: “Yeah.”

Ben and I were at a Barnes and Noble one time, and he saw a mention of The Orville on a magazine cover and was like, “Oh! Funny story about working with Seth MacFarlane…” It’s a testament to my own career trajectory that I’m able to share similar amusing anecdotes, but only about porn stars and the Archbishop of Canterbury.