”Good morning sir, and welcome to Waltmar,” the smiling older gentleman with wavy silver hair said, his false teeth shining in the sunlight, ” how can we help you today? We’re having a sale on 720p pixels, and there’s still some DVDs left if you hurry.”
“Thanks,” Ranger said, “but I’m looking for some AR, I’d like to buy 10 or 20 pounds of it, or however you sell it.”
“Yes sir, that’d be in aisle 10, near the end, just past the invisible wearables-and boy are they selling like hot cakes.”
Ranger ambled down the rows and walked down Aisle 12, looking at mice without tails, speakers without wires, and keyboards shaped like melons, and thought, what is this world coming to?
“Hi,” the bright smiling red aproned attendee wearing the Ronald name badge said, his freshly scrubbed face and slicked down carrot hair beaming under the 5000 watt florescent lights. “Can I be of any assistance?”
“I hope so,” said Ranger, “I’d like to buy some AR, I’m thinking 10, maybe 20 pounds of it should do for what I have in mind.”
Ronald looked perplexed. “10, 20 pounds, ah, we don’t sell AR by the pound sir. Perhaps if you told me what you want to do I could be of more help,” and the color came back into his face as the thought of fulfilling his purpose in life returned.
“I want to put a deck on the back of my house next to the pool, and I was told if I could get some AR I could get’er done, so give 20 pounds, I got my pickup outside.”
“Ah, sir, you can use AR to see how a deck would look on the back of your house, but we don’t sell AR by the pound.”
“Oh, should I have gone to Homely Deport instead? That’s where I get my supplies, and wood, and shit. But my pal Neil Trevolta said I’d have to go to an app store for AR. I looked up app store and the closest thing I could find was appliances and so I came here. You sell appliances don’t you, cause I can always go down to Fries if you don’t.”
”Yes sir we do sell appliances, but I don’t think that’s what you need, you need an AR app. We have some right here,” and Ronald proudly pointed at some colorfully illustrated and labeled boxes about the size of a tall book.
Ranger picked a box and looked at, turned it over a few times, put it down, picked up another, and then a little bewildered said,” I don’t see how any 20 x 20 foot deck is going to come outta this here little box son. You being a smart ass?”
“Oh no sir, I’ve never been a smart ass, a smart anything for that matter, I was lucky to get this job.”
Felling a little sorry for Ronald, Ranger relaxed his stance and voice and said, “OK son, then how about you tell me how I’m supposed to get a 20 x 20 outta this box?”
“Well sir, I’ve never built a deck, or anything actually, but as I understand it, you load this software,” and he grabbed one of the boxes and held it out, “into your camera phone, and then point the camera at the place you want the deck to be, and you’ll see the deck in the phone’s screen. Or at least I think that’s how it works.”
“Ah-huh…. My iPhone is going to make a deck in my back yard, is that what you’re tellin me?”
“Something like that sir, I’m not really sure. I could get my manager if you’d like, she might be able to explain it better.”
Nah, that’s OK son, I’ll just mosey over to Homely and get some 2x4s and do it the old-fashioned way. You take care now,” and he walked away shaking his head. Kids today he thought. He heard Ronald behind him, “Have a nice day and thanks for shopping at Waltmar.”