Music time!

Hello.

So it was an active day today in the music department at Booth and Noble, one fraught with troubling danger and rabid adventures. It was a stormy Tuesday today. It has been said that the rain washes away the grime of the city. What they don't say is that this grime is then washed straight into Booth and Noble, where it sits and mingles with the books and CDs and DVDs and gift cards.

The first person to walk into the music department, the first customer, as I recall, to walk into the store, the person standing outside the doors waiting for the store to be unlocked at 9am (because it's just THAT IMPORTANT to get your book/CD/DVD/card): this was the conversation that occurred between us. Try to imagine yourself in my place: try to picture yourself hunched over a notebook with scribbled instructions in them, the instructions that detail your tasks for the day, the tasks that will consume your every thought for the next eight hours. Picture yourself looking at those tasks, concentrating with your every fiber, understanding the complex instructions in front of you. Now picture, coming at you like an injured bird, a tall woman with black hair and more fake gold than Mr. T . She approaches you like a guided missile approaching its heat-creating target.

She opens her mouth; the wind rushes past your ears and you wonder how it got so windy, so far from the windows.

"Excuse me," she starts, "but do you have..." and then she spies your nametag. Her jaw drops, and her eyes reflect the confusion in her heart.

"Oh my..." she begins. "Did you know that you have the most unique name?"

I look down at my name tag. Did I accidentally wear Philip Q. McUni-Que's nametag again? Nope...it was mine.

Paul.

"Um, ma'am, are you sure?"

"Paul," she reminds me, "is very uncommon."

"Paul is a Biblical name."

"Yes. Yes it is. Think about that."

I stop and think about it. "Ma'am, can I look up a CD for you? Perhaps the uniquely named 'John Smith?"

"Think about this," she says as she approaches me behind the desk, coming closer and closer. Soon, she is close enough that I can see into her gaping mouth, the thin white spittle creating a harpstring between her upper and lower cuspids. "Think about this. How many 'Paul's' where there in your high school?"

I think.

The first thought that comes into my head is to call the police. Then I think about getting my high school yearbook. Then I think about what I'm going to have for lunch, and decide on Sweet and Sour Chicken.

"Ma'am, there were 1500 students in my high school. I'm sure at least one was named Paul."

"YES!" She exclaims, happiness exuding from her like sweat from a go-go dancer. "Yes there was. YOU!" She cackles, and leaves the department.

A few minutes later, a man walks into wearing a baseball cap. He spoke barely above as whisper and I had to strain to hear every syllable. I leaned in close, tilted my head to proffer forth my ear.

"excuse me" he said. "do you have the secret?"

The Secret is the biggest DVD to hit stores in a long time. A supposed "self-help" DVD, it offers, for a mere 39 dollars, to grant you your every single wish. All you have to do is think really, really hard about it, and you will get it. There is testimony (I am not kidding here) in it where a man declared that his fondest wish was to date three women at the same time. He wished really hard, and BAM he became an asshole.

Mission Accomplished!

Anyway, the scary man asked again. "do you have the secret?"

"Yes, yes we do." I hand it to him.

"how much would this be if I sent it straight to my house?"

I look it up for him. It's a full 10 dollars cheaper, and I tell him this.

He stops and thinks. Wishes really hard.

"how long would it take to get to me if you sent it?"

I strain, but catch the gist of his meaning. "It would be about a week to get to you."

He stops, again, and thinks further. He closes his eyes and wishes really hard. Then, he opens them and sighs.

"I'll take this one now, then."

I sell him the DVD and wish him well.

A short time later, a strangely old woman walks in. I say "strangely old" because, honestly, all things being equal, this woman should probably be dead. Her skin was so saggy, she tripped over it. I doubt she could walk in a strong wind without being sailed away. She wasn't wrinkled: she was one giant wrinkle.

Plus, she was about four foot tall.

She glides over to me, sailing on the wind, and touches lightly down on the ground like a graceful swan diving into the water. Landing delicately on her toes in front of me, she lowers her wings and looks up at me. I smile, charmed by her avian antics.

"Can I help you, my swan princess?" I ask.

"Yes," she replies, her old body sagging under the weight of weariness. My heart goes out to this old bird. "Yes you can. I am looking for belly dancing DVDs."

Suddenly, the record needle went scratch. The sound stopped and the entire store looked over at us. People peeked over the top of the music department wall to see this old, saggy woman and her dancing belly. I lead her over to the DVD section and hand her a DVD. She looked at it, and with one quick flick of her wrists, arose in the air. She circled over me like a cloud and then darted towards the sun. As I stared at her, a single tear fell down my check and splashed on the ground.

"Good luck, my dear swan princess." I whispered.