Bookstore Chronicles: Countdown to Xmas #3

A cornucopia of crazies came rollin' on in this week. Christmas is getting close and it's cold outside by NC standards, so I knew they would.

If you sell it, they will come (notice the cornucopia I chose is full of fruit).



Last week, remember how I stated that I become slightly afraid when I get called up to the front for customer assistance? That time it was Logging Lady. This week it was Calendar Guy.

I get up to the front after I hear the page, and the cashier tells me that the customer is looking for an Anne Geddes calendar. You know Anne Geddes...she's the one that dresses babies as cabbages and people think it's cute?




I notice that the customer has an Anne Geddes calendar in his hand already, and I point this out. Call me Captain Obvious.

"This ain't the right one," he replies.

The cashier shows me the picture of the one he wants and he follows me out to the calendar racks. When I say he followed me, I mean he followed me. I mean he practically glued his feet to my feet just in case I got more than two inches ahead of him.

I'm sure all of you have had an encounter with a 'Close Stander'. These people are completely missing that natural chip in their brains that tell them "YOU ARE STANDING TOO CLOSE AND THE OTHER PERSON IS UNCOMFORTABLE". They're the ones that will sit right next to you in an empty movie theater when there are 200 other seats to choose from.

I'm a person that doesn't even like being that close to people I know and like.

I'm sure I get one Close Stander a day at the store. There's one particular lookup computer in the music department that I dread using. It's the only one in the store where the screen and keyboard face towards the customer. So my back is to the customer standing behind me when I'm looking a title up for them. For some reason that gives people the green light to practically dry hump me into the desk.

Anyway, I take Calendar Guy into the section, and he's spouting off compliments about me. Conjure up a "paddle faster, I hear banjo music" sort of accent in your minds.

"You sure are a beautiful lady. You have such pretty eyes, wow you're good-lookin'! And your hair. I love redheads! You're just so beautiful. I guess I should shut up in case my wife comes up behind me. Did I mention how good-lookin' you are???..."

So everyone likes a compliment. I'm not a total dog, so I occasionally get asked for my phone number and I have to flash the wedding ring. But when a 60 year old man is following you so closely that he's practically saddling you up, the compliments become a bit creepy. Especially when they don't stop. I said thank you 5 times, and he still went on.

We get over to the calendar rack in the corner, and he was standing way too close. I backed up around the fixture, and he backed up with me. I was pretty much pressed against the wall. Keep in mind that he's complimenting me the whole time, and simultaneously telling me just how many of those Anne Geddes calendars we should have in the store.

Booksellers are not supposed to tell customers exactly how many of a certain product that we have. We are all human beings, and human beings make errors. Things get put in the wrong place and we can't find them. If a customer knows you can't find something and they've been told that there are 10 copies of it, you look like a total asshole.

"There are 6 of 'em. She told me there were 6, but I just can't find 'em. Did I tell you I think you're pretty and I want to wear your skin as a snowsuit??"

Okay, he didn't say that last part, but it sure felt like he was thinking it.

Creepy McCreeperson.

I just couldn't find him the calendar he wanted, and he finally left with the one he originally had in his hand. And I was left with the intense urge to take a shower and to write" The Twelve Days of a Bookstore Christmas".

Twelve crackheads sleeping,
Eleven children screaming,
Ten CDs stolen,
Nine customers ranting,
Eight fruitcakes raving,
Seven chairs soiled,
Six porn mags hidden,

Fiiiiive piiiink fuuuuuuuzzy booooooks!!

Four Close Standers,
Three strippers limping,
Two tattooed bikers,

...and a Frappuccino spilled on the floooooooor!


Speaking of raving fruitcakes.

The other night I was at customer service, and a dude walks up. I could tell by the shifty look in his eyes that he'd had all sorts of crazy for breakfast that morning. He sounded like Peter Lorre in 'Arsenic and Old Lace'.

"Hey, I'm sorry to bother you but I just wanted to tell you that I was outside the library tonight and I saw the eclipse and I just wanted to tell you that you had better be good yeah and I'll be good and we all need to be good so something bad doesn't happen I see you're probably busy but I just needed to tell you that and you have a good night I'm sorry to bother you..."

Ho.Lee. Shit. I thought I was gonna get stabbed. He seriously was talking like that. I haven't encountered a run-on sentence like that since reading James Joyce. Joyce was kinda crazy like that. But he only had one crazy eye.



I don't know what the hell Eclipse Guy was talking about. The sky did look a little weird around sunset, it was yellowish-green...I don't know. I'm just glad the dude backed up and walked away before I had to call security.




There was porn found in the men's bathroom for the second time this week. I was shelving some books near the cafe when I overheard a customer telling this chick he was with that he had to go to the bathroom and that someone had put a stash of porn in there.

I turned around. "Did you just say there was porn in the bathroom?"

He looked at me like he wished I hadn't heard so that he could go in and look at it again. "Yeah."

I sent our assistant manager in there with a pair of gloves. He came out carrying two books. One was a large Kama Sutra photo book, and the other was "Sex For Dummies".

The Kama Sutra I can understand. "Sex For Dummies"?? Who the hell uses "Sex For Dummies" as spank bank material? "Ooh, I get all turned on by educational descriptions, semi-witty quips and crude ink drawings!" I suppose it's not that weird...after all, there are people out there who like it when people paddle them or pee on them. But I can even understand THAT more than I can understand someone getting off on "Sex For Dummies".

Why do people even need 'how-to' sex books anyway? This is one of our most popular ones:



Where's the imagination? Why don't you just ask your man what he likes? What if he doesn't want his perineum probed?? What if he doesn't want his testes tugged??

I found that book left on the Bible table yesterday. Makes sense. If you follow the book's instructions, you'll make your man see Jesus.



I've mentioned before that my company is all about freedom of speech. When it comes to books, we sell anything and everyhing.

The assistant manager and I were cleaning up near the end of the night (the same night we found the 'porn'). We were talking and this woman strides up to us.

"Hi. So I can't BELIEVE that you don't sell books by Hitler. This is ridiculous. I thought a company like this would sell 'Mein Kampf' for sure! I'm very disappointed in your company."

I'm sure the both of us looked like deer in the headlights. "Actually ma'am, we do sell 'Mein Kampf'. I'll show you where it is," I said.

Hitler Girl follwed along behind me. Thank God she kept her distance, unlike Calendar Guy.

"Well, I don't see it anywhere. It's not in your biography section. Where else would it be?"

She just kept talking and saying how disappointed she was. A lot of people buy 'Mein Kampf' and I went straight to the shelf it was on in the European History section.

I put it her hand, and she acted surprised like she had thought I was lying about having it in the store. She was delighted. Then she was quickly disappointed because we didn't have Hitler's second book.

I offered to try and order it. "What's it called?"

She looked at me like I had just asked her what year it was. "It's called 'Hitler's Second Book'."

Then she went into a lecture about how Hitler was so smart and was quoting 'Mein Kampf'. Now, I don't deny that Hitler was charismatic. Most fascist rulers are, don't ya know? How else would you get people to follow you and kill 6 million people for you? But I generally hate murderous leaders who use their charisma for pure evil and I don't go around quoting them in public places.

The assistant manager that was there with me had grown a mustache for the month of November, it's a fundraising thing that they do here to raise money for sick kids. We had been joking all month that he should shave it into a Hitler-stache. Of course he didn't do that, but he dyed it black for fun. After the woman left, he mentioned that and we laughed. Can you imagine? She would have thrown herself down on the ground in front of him in a 'we're not worthy-esque' sort of way.



This week's Wiener of the Week Winner is....drum roll please!

The Marine that was standing in the Current Affairs section with his buddy, talking very loudly about shaving his balls.

Literally. " ...SO I TOTALLY HAD TO SHAVE MY BALLS LAST NIGHT BECAUSE THIS GIRL..."

There was a family looking at books just behind Customer Service that looked up at this, over in the Marine's general direction. Then the family looked at me like, 'Aren't you going to do something about this?'

I actually had to go over and tell the Marine that if he was going to talk about his balls, he had to be quieter about it. Well, I didn't use those words, but you know.

Funniest Secondhand Bookseller Experience of the Week?

My co-worker S had a good one. I'm not quoting exactly, because I wasn't there. But she deserves a guest spot in my blog (S is a weirdo-magnet), and this is how it happens in my mind.

S: Hi there! Is there anything I can help you with?

Customer: Yes. I'm from New Jersey. I'm looking for a book on baby care, but you probably don't have those down here.
[ie: The South]

S: Actually we do...[S, who is from the South, finds the book Jersey Girl is looking for]

Jersey Girl: There's no box with this. Doesn't it come with a box?

S: No ma'am, I'm sorry, it doesn't come with a box.

Jersey Girl: Oh. I don't want it then.

Apparently in New Jersey, all the baby books come with boxes and they think Southerners learn all their baby care tips from the local Mountain Witch Woman. Maybe everything comes with a box in New Jersey. Like the dead bodies that the Mafia dump into the Hudson River. How do you like that false stereotype, Jersey Girl?




Christmas is next week. We're getting down to crunch time. I'm thinking of writing another Christmas song...."It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest".



(I'm oh so talented with 'Paint')