A Gross of Gross at Booth and Noble

Hello.

You know, it may occur to some people after reading this blog that there the American Educational System (AES) needs some major Overhaul (O). Yes, it is true: people come into Booth and Noble EVERYDAY and ask us where the "nonfiction" section is. And yes, people do come into the music department EVERYDAY and demand to know if we're ever going to stock Beta Max again. But these we know about. These are the people, the subjects of this blog, who make up the days of our lives.

But what of the other people?

If Booth and Noble fulfills its promise: to be a haven for your tired, your sick, your weary masses, then where are the gross?

Yes, for too long this blog has been about the customers at Booth and Noble who defy education, who eschew obfuscation, who demand nothing but bestseller crap and literary junk food.

It is time to change things. It is time to talk about the gross people that enter Booth and Noble.

There are three categories of gross people. For the sake of simplicity, I will label them,
1) Gross-lyte
2) Gross-Regular
3) Gross-Unique. (or, Grossnique).

Here is how I differentiate them. Gross-Lytes are those that come in once in awhile and do something that makes you think to yourself, wow, if I did that I would probably think less of myself. The Gross-Lytes are those people that curl their bare feet under their sweaty ass when they sit on the chairs. Yes, when you go to a bookstore, and you sit on the chairs, think about how many sweaty, nasty feet have been plunged into the stuffing of that chair. Think about how many pimply, pot marked, calloused backsides have sat, immobile, for hours on that very seat. Think about this: when you reach down to pick up the pen that fell between the cushion and the arm of the chair: someone has probably peed in that very seat. All but one of the chairs at Booth and Noble has been peed upon - and only two of them by me.

As a newer example of the Gross-Lyte, there was a woman yesterday who came into the store and had blood red cleavage. I mean, there were two large breasts and in between, where there should have been dark shadow, was a bright red area. It looked as though the skin had been peeled off her bosom and the lower layer of epidermis was peaking its way out like a groundhog on February 2nd. This was Gross-Lyte.

Gross-Regulars are those people that habitually come into the store. These people generally tend to get nicknames -- for instance, there's Manga-Girl, who last summer spent every single day from 9am until 10pm in the store reading Manga. (As there weren't that many Manga titles back then, that means she must've read each title approximate thirty-two times each.) There is the Family Skank, which should be self-explanatory. The Family Skank, obese mother, skinny, bedraggled father, and two obese children (singlehandedly, this family is keeping the American Obesity Epidemic in the double digits), come into the store occasionally. They like to sit on the floor, sprawled out in their muumuus and their funny plastic shoes and read Anne McCaffrey Dragon novels. They also smell like day old veal.

An example of a Gross-Regular is the guy I affectionately term, "Shitty-Guy." Shitty-Guy comes in and shits a couple times a day in our bathroom. Now, the Booth and Noble bathroom at the moment is, without a doubt, the most disgusting place on the planet. Some pipe somewhere has leaked and for some reason, no one has come to fix it. It smells, consistently, like the inside of an anus. I am not joking. It is vile. Imagine that every time you've gone to the bathroom in the past two weeks, but instead of flushing the toilet, you've decided to let it sit and "marinate" -- this is what the men's room at Booth and Noble is like.

Part of the reason for this extreme smell is because of Shitty-Guy. There have been times I have wanted to use the restroom, but Shitty-Guy has been in there, becoming eponymous. Somehow, Shitty-Guy must have lost his sense of smell, because he remains in the men's room for a long time. Most of us just head to the pet store next door, where it smells much nicer.

The third category I reserve for the indescribably gross. I call these, the Grossnique.

They are not regular customers, but they do something that makes the memory of them endure for years.

For example, yesterday, a woman comes up to me when I'm at the cash registers and she hands me...

A retainer.

A Used Retainer.

She sets it on the counter in front of me and says, "I think someone left this."

Oh really? Someone left their retainer? You mean it's not something we sell?

I walk to the cafe and grab a plate and a long stream of plastic wrap. I gingerly grasp it between two paper towels and thrust it onto the plate, all the while stopping my gag reflex. The dirt alone on the retainer made me rethink my position of euthanasia. Finally, it's on the plate and I wrap it in plastic. A neat and tidy present for an unsuspecting child.

Anyway, these are the three examples of Gross-ness at Booth and Noble. I'm sure more abound. I look forward to hearing about them, and sharing more grossities with you.