Ok, so I work in a bookstore, just to give you the background.
It’s saturday.
I arrive at the store at about 9:50 (we open at 10). Guy is at the door knocking as I’m walking up. I tell him we don’t open until 10 and he says he just wants to see if we have a book. Well now, I don’t really feel comfortable having this guy follow me into a dark store when I don’t know if my co-workers have arrived yet. Plus, our computer system wasn’t up yet, so I told him as much. I ended up running in to grab a piece of paper to take down his info and then spent about an hour trying to find the book he was talking about. All of the ones that looked remotely like possibilities were out of print. Not too bad, in and of itself.
Man comes in around noon or so. Wants the Bill Phillips Body-for-Life (and any new books by him) and tells me that there’s one that was published recently. So I take him to the health section and show him the Body-for-Life book and the journal (which I thought might have been the recent one, since it was 2002, and I told him that). He told me he’d take the other (never actually commented on the journal). We get up to the counter and he asks about the new one. I told him that it might be the one I showed him and he states matter-of-factly that I didn’t show him another book. OOOOOkaaaay. So I run downstairs again to get it to show him. As he’s looking at he, he morphs into the royal we at least three quarters of the time he’s speaking. Now, the royal we can be used to great effect facetiously, but this guy was saying it for all of his comments. Bizarre
Guy picks up an art book - America Latina, with Frida Kahlo on the cover - $50. He asks if we have any wrapped in plastic. My coworker checks - that’s the only one we have. I add that most of the art books we get don’t come wrapped in plastic. Plus, it’s not as if this book is shopworn…it’s in perfect condition. I can understand that he might want a wrapped version, but just combined with everything else, argh.
Yesterday evening
- Guy comes in, can’t find the house he’s looking for. 7934 McPherson. I didn’t know which way on McPherson he had to go, but I told him that one side of the street was odd and one even (I guess he didn’t already know that), so he leaves to go check again. Comes back in. Hasn’t found it. He calls the phone number of that person but they don’t answer. I check on mapquest. It’s .07 miles away, right around the corner. So he goes and checks going one way and comes back in saying “the numbers were 7850 and going down.” Well then…hmm…what might be the best thing to do…go the other way? Hmmm? So after coming back in about four times I guess he finally found it (I’m convinced he just was looking on the wrong side of the street, expecting 7934 to be right next to 7933 even though I told him it wouldn’t be).
I could go on, but I won’t, since my lunch break is ending. Is it a full moon now or something?
