Charles apparently observes the real world, despite appearances. Here you can see his ticket counter set up. He has his big pile of money for making change. Taped to the front of the booth are sign up lists, which he made me sign in order to get back to my office. You can see the pen on top of the leftmost column. When customers aren’t lining up for tickets, Charles doesn’t goof off. You can see him hard at work on something, his face furrowed with intense concentration.
This set up lasted a couple of days. Luckily I managed to persuade Charles that I only needed to sign in once a day. I feel a little guilty about that because Charles goes to a lot of work to set up his shops and gets very few customers. He’ll spend literally hours over the course of two or three days waiting patiently for someone to show up. A few days ago he broke down crying because he’d set up shop in the kids’ office in the basement and “no one buy anything for a long time!”. Erica and I made some purchases at that point but Charles has far more endurance for the game than either of us. Still, he waits there, patiently, a mix of hope and sadness on his face.
While Mom and I were on vacation, she made us go shopping in the overpriced tourist trap shops on the main drag. One of the stores was a high end camping gear / clothing shop. I liked one shirt in there but it was pricey and I had even less real need for it than most of my toys. I felt badly for not buying it, however. It’s only now that I realize that it’s probably because the proprietor had the exact same look on his face as Charles does when there are no buying customers to be found. Charles is a bit easier on the wallet, though.