Booth and Noble

Phone Grunt

2008-10-14T17:10:00.005-04:00

Hello.

My apologies. It seems to be the norm in the blogo-net that one must routinely apologize for their late arrivals and missed connections, but to my dear friends I must offer my sincerest sorrys. It has been over a month since my last post.

My excuse, however feeble, is that I actually haven't been at Booth and Noble. I have been instead on a whirlwind adventure, starting from the foothills of the Northeast, traversing the dusty plains of the Midwest, and finally culminating in the moist happiness of the Far East.

But, upon my return to Booth and Noble, I was not disappointed by the tearful horror that greeted me. I took not one, but two phone calls on Sunday from what could only (at best) be described as mutant gorillas who learned how to speak but did not, as such, develop the capacity to reason or form coherent thoughts.

Imagine, if you will, a jungle of talking beasts. But instead of forming thoughts that make sense, these poor animals simply move their lips and emit a form of breath. By pursing their lips and moving their tongue into a number of complicated formations, they can simulate what speech sounds like. But they are as far removed from having an intelligent thought as my bookcase is from being edible.

But I digress. Two phone calls, within minutes of each other. The first begins averagely enough:

"Thank you for calling Booth and Noble, how can I help you?"

A pleasant elderly lady's voice peeks through the speaker: "Yes, where are you?"

The briefest of pauses. "...I'm in Booth and Noble."

"No, I mean, where is your store?"

"Oh! We're in the Native American Commons."

"Is that a mall?"

"Well...it's an outdoor shopping area. There's a Booth-Mart, a Booth's, and Booth Chopper, and a Booth Wireless store too."

"Can I get there in my car?"

"...yes."

"How do I get there from Pacey Street?"

"I don't know where Pacey Street is, ma'am."

"Well how do you like that? I thought you'd be able to help."

"Ma'am, we're between Middle Ave, or Route 3 and Booth-Booth Road, which is Route 8. You can't miss us. We're the big building with Booth and Noble written on the side."

"Well, I don't know if you'll see me later. I may not make it."

The phone clicked to a standstill and I breathed a sigh. At least, I thought to myself, this would be the most irritating thing to happen all day.

Then the phone rang again.

"Hello, thank you for calling Booth and Noble, how can I help you?"

It was a young woman on the phone. A young woman who sounded like she was speaking to me from another planet. "Yes, I put a book on hold last week and I wanted to check to see if it was still there."

"Ok, well we usually only hold books for three days, but I'll check. What's your name?"

"Kayly."

"Kelly?"

"No, Kayly."

"Kylie?"

"KAYLY."

"Ok, I'll check." I check. No name up there.

"What book is it?" I ask, not unreasonably.

"The SAT II Book on Literature."

I look again.

"Sorry, I couldn't find the book up at the cash registers. Why don't I check on the shelf for you?"

"Ok, why don't you?" comes the snarled reply.

I hurried to the shelf like a good little elf. After five minutes of exhaustive searching I turned back to the phone.

"I'm sorry, I can't find it on the shelf. Are you sure you gave the name Kayly?"

"Maybe I gave them a different name."

I sighed. Why should this day be any different?

"What name might you have given them?"

"John."

Let me check for you.

It was under "John," of course.

"Yes, we have that. I'll hold it until the end of tomorrow for you."

"Thank you! Good bye."

[dramatic pause.]

Fifteen minutes later...

"thank you for calling Booth and Noble, how can I help you?"

"yeah, you know that book I reserved?"

"who is this?"

"Kayly John. You know that book I reserved?"

"Yes, I do. I looked all over for it, remember?"

"What is it called?"

"What?"

"What is it called?"

I checked the exact title.

"It's called The SAT II Literature Review Book."

"Ok, thanks."

--click--.

[dramatic pause.]

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER

"Hi, it's me again."

"Hi."

"Can you tell me the author on that book?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Who wrote it?"

I check for Kayly. I tell her: "Diane Amberson and Jason Anderton"

"Are you sure?"

"Kayly, I'm looking at the book right now."

"Well, I'm looking at it online, and it only says one author."

"I really don't know what to tell you. Would you like me to put the book back on the shelf?"

"No," she says. "I'm planning on coming in to look at it soon."

Think on that, dear reader. Think on that.

ARGH Grunt

2008-09-08T06:22:00.003-04:00

Hello.

I knew it was going to be a bad day at the very first customer. A short, squat, pallid-looking elderly lady walks in, followed by her even older, shorter, squatier, and more-pallid-looking mother. The proceed to gab and gossip, sounding like a couple of chipmunks. They head over to the Pop Standards section (of course).

Giggle giggle giggle. Gab gab gab. "HEY THIS SONG IS GREAT" one shouts at other when she has the headphones on. No worries ma'am - I'm glad the cashier at the front of the store was able to hear that you liked the song - oh, and he loves your singing too.

Then one of them walks up to me:
"Do you have any Julie Andrews?"

"Yes, she's in pop standards, actually, rather close to where you were standing." I walk with her over to the Pop Standards section and point out the CDs.

The Pop Standards section is almost as far away from the desk where I sit as you can get, by the way.

She wanders around Julie Andrews for a minute, and then walks back to me.

"What about Michael Buble?"

"What about him?"

"Do you have any of his CDs?"

..."Yes, they're in Pop Standards, approximately 10 inches from Julie Andrews."

I walk across the department with her and show them to her. At this point, I usually say something like: "It's easy to find anyone you want, because its organized alphabetically," and they usually are able to find the other people they want.

I say this and walk back to my desk.

Two minutes later:

"Do you have any Frank Sinatra?"

"Excuse me?"

"Frank Sinatra? Do you have any? CDs?"

You mean the most popular singer in the English speaking world? Ol' Blue Eyes? The man constantly sampled, parodied, homaged, revered, feared, sung and possibly loved in the United States?

"Yes, yes we do," I say as I walk AGAIN back to the POP STANDARDS section, shift approxmiately one foot to my right, and point out the ENTIRE SHELF of Frank Sinatra.

The rest of the day I couldn't get the haunting image of this woman -- short, squat and music-happy -- wandering through the seven shelves of Pop Standards searching, hoping against hope, that there might be some CDs of Burt Bacharach somewhere...anywhere...where on earth could he be?

Grunt Too Much?

2008-08-13T09:39:00.002-04:00

Hello.

I've found an interesting phenomenon at Booth and Noble as of late:

it has been incredibly quiet.

I don't know if it's because a giant, new Booth and Noble moved in just a few minutes drive away - and people seem to like to drive an extra 30 minutes in order to enjoy a greater selection of books that they won't - or can't - actually read.

Perhaps it's because of the recent downturn in the economy, and people no longer wish to buy books.

(Actually, since most of our customers use Booth and Noble like a library/prostitute, this probably isn't the reason).

Maybe it's because people can no longer read. It would certainly explain why I have to tell people that the large sign that says "RESTROOM" is actually a "RESTROOM."

Whatever the reason, I do think that there are fewer people hauling their bulk around Booth and Noble, and although in theory this doesn't sound bad, in actuality it is quite disturbing.

Because the ones who do flop around the store and the determined, the needy, the horrific - the unwashed masses.

For instance, the other day in Booth and Noble's music department, an unwashed comes up to me. He says, "do you have any CDs of rain?"

I try to not stare at his tooth.

His one tooth.

"Rain? Sure, we have some sound effects CDs."

Then he starts: You know how in Return to Oz, the movie with the scary Wheelies, Tick-Tock the robot gets wound up and then moves in hyperspeed for awhile, until he settles down? This is what Unwashed did. He just started talking faster...and faster...and faster...

"You know why I want this CD?" [no pause for me to answer] "I've been listening to ocean sounds back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and I found that I CAN'T SLEEP THROUGH IT anymore." [oh yeah, and his voice modulates up and down, louder and softer too]. "So I thought I'd get some rain sounds because it reminds me of Nam and when I was there I could sleep through the rain no problem so I'm sure I can sleep through this..." [meanwhile, I've given him the CD and he has indicated that we should return to the cash register]. "So I said to my wife that I'd get a rain CD and here it is and it's only 10 dollars, that's a great deal for rain."

"Yup," I say.

"Anyway, do you know my Mom died when I was just a kid and now I watch Abbott and Costello and think about her do you have any new Abbott and Costello?"

I check the computer.

"No, nothing new," I say.

"It really made me sad when I saw Costello die on screen" [at this point, I'm like 'WHA???'] but I got through it because it was also so funny. It was a lot like Star Trek.

"WHA?" I think I actually verbalized it without the 'T' because I was so shocked.

"You know in Star Trek when the Enterprise got destroyed and I looked at it and I thought 'That's my childhood and it's going up in flames and its gone forever!' man, that was a good movie. I love Christopher Lloyd. Anyway, bye."

And he turns and walks into the sunset. I'm sure he's still talking somewhere, to someone...

Regular Grunts

2008-08-04T12:45:00.005-04:00

Hello.

Yesterday was a particularly slow day in the music department of Booth and Noble. Besides the few stragglers who wandered around for hours and then didn't buy anything (a common practice), there were only a few sales of any worth.

So, instead of describing some of the society's rejects that shop at Booth and Noble, I think I might describe some regulars that are in the store every Sunday (the day I work).

The first I shall call Carl. Carl calls Booth and Noble every Sunday and requests a CD - his taste, judging from his purchase history, ranges from the hardcore (Aimee Mann) to the more subdued (Aimee Mann). He also likes Jazz and showtunes.

Carl has the habit of bending very close to the CDs as they are splayed out on the rack and thumbing through them quickly. He also has a rather large rump. Imagine, if you will, a large-rumped beast bent over a the waist, eyes three inches from the surface of the CD, scanning as quickly as possible. He will scan through most of "his" sections (Pop Rock - M, Jazz, Shows, and sometimes Blues) as quickly as possible. I don't know what he's looking for, or even if he can see it when he scans that quickly.

Carl also ends every conversation with me with a high five. This started about 8 weeks ago. He holds up his hand in the air, and as much as it depresses me, I cannot leave a man hangin' like that. So I slap him five.

I hate to encourage this behavior, because I do not believe that people who do not know each other should give each other five. A firm handshake would also be ok, although shaking the hand of an employee who just sold you an overpriced CD is a tad odd. But the high five - really? Is this a new thing, a "fad" as the kids say? Is it possible that I've missed out on the new cultural greeting?

What an interesting experiment: go into various stores and high five the people that work there. Here're my predictions:

Wal-Mart: Total high five back, if the person who works there hasn't already given up on life.
Old Navy: Possible high five. Only high five if the headsets are not working.
Famous Footwear: No high five, due to the fact that their backs are completely curved over.
Target: High five with an added "Whoop! Oh-yeah" because everyone knows that people that work at Target are clinically insane.
Abercrombie and Fitch: No high five, and a withering look of disdain.

Carl does not, I imagine, work at any of these places. He might work in a Hobby Shop. Or maybe in a factory making toys for overprivileged children.

Grunt Update

2008-07-26T10:26:00.002-04:00

Hello.

You may remember reading a I post I wrote about a book signing I did a few weeks ago ( LINK .

In this post, I mentioned the book Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy, in which a friend and I each have written a chapter.

Yesterday, this friend (and a number of others) were all walking down the street and we happened to see one of the cast members walk into a bar.

As it happens, we also had a copy of BSG and Philosophy with us.

So we went inside, told this cast member how much we appreciated the show, and gave them a copy.

It was one of the best experiences of my life.

Grunt at War

2008-07-20T18:21:00.002-04:00

Hello.

In the desolate outreaches of civilization, where even the bravest men fear to travel, I, alone, stand tall. Others may quiver at the mere thought of venturing past the gates, but I, alone, stay. There are few that could survive its barren loneliness, its constant threat of danger, and the ever present odor of death. But I, I alone, can claim complete ownership of this fear.

Today I worked in the music department of Booth and Noble.

As with most days in the music department of Booth and Noble, I found myself with nothing to do. No customers to help, no time to start "projects," no alphabetizing to do.

And then the pair of them walked in.

The daughter, pudgy and with a hint of cowardice, slunk behind her brazenly obese mother, who stormed up to me like a giant baguette of slander and hate.

"How do you have your CDs?" she exclaims, ejecting spittle as if my face were on fire.

"Excuse me?" I wipe.

"How do you have your CDs?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"If I wanted to find a CD, how would I look for it?"

"Oh, well, they're first organized by genre..."

She interrupted: "What. The HELL. Is Genre?"

I looked at her face: this was not a joke. "Genre is a way of organizing things by what category you'd put them in; for instance, we have "pop rock," "classical," "folk..."

"Never mind that fancy talk. I need a new CD, because some BITCH" and at this point she glares at her daughter with eyes of pure fury "decided to take and LOSE my BEST CD."

"Um...ok...I'm sorry" I say to the daughter more than to the mother, "what CD was it?"

"The Greatest Hits of Boyz II Men."

I stifle a giggle.

"Uh, yeah, that's right here," I say and hand it to her. She grabs it from me as if it was made of solid gold. I swear she would have licked it if I weren't there.

Meanwhile, the daughter has slowly wandered away to one of our listening stations. These are the kiosks where a customer can scan a CD underneath the barcode reader and listen to samples from that CD. We often have people asking us if the CDs themselves are broken if the kiosk only plays a few seconds of a track; we have to assure them that the CDs are working fine and the listening station just plays samples.

I assume the daughter was playing something by the Beastie Boys or NWA, because if this woman were my mother, I'd have issues with society as well.

The mother grabs the CD from me and waddles over to the listening station the daughter is on. Now, she is actually closer to a different listening station, and there are 25 listening stations literally within twenty feet of her. But she wanders over to her daughter's and says:

"Get the hell off this, I need to listen to my CD." Never in my life have I been so desperate to listen to a CD THAT I ALREADY KNOW.

The daughter gingerly pulls off the headphones and hands them to her mother. The mother:

"THANK you, you CD loser. I know what I'm doing."

"Mom," the daughter says, "do you want me to help you?"

"Get your hands away from this CD. I don't want you losing THIS one as well."

At this point I'm about to cry, the daughter is worn down and the mother is trying to use the listening station, and failing. Instead of scanning the CD, she's hitting the top of the listening kiosk with it.

Then, the daughter helps her and she starts to happily dance to On Bended Knee .

She pays for the CD - no, she does not have a membership card - and as they're walking out she turns to the daughter and says:

"If you lose this CD, I'll lose you."

I still don't know what this means, but if I were that daughter, I'd want to be lost.

The daughter

Grunt from the Other Side

2008-07-19T08:30:00.003-04:00

Hello.

Yesterday I had the unique experience of being a Grunt while not actually at work.

You see, I recently published a chapter in a book (Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy), along with a friend of mine, and together we contacted the Booth and Noble at which I am employed to inquire about having a book signing. She and I were both happy as kittens to be there.

Of course, we know that this is a rather esoteric title, and the number of books signed and sold will be fewer than the number of people who saw The Love Guru, but we thought it would be fun nevertheless. How often does one get to do a book signing?

What we did not realize was that my job as a Grunt would significantly impact the people that approached us for our signatures.

We sat in our chairs and waited for the hoards of nerdos to attack.

No nerdos approached.

Instead, the man who approached our table glaced at us through eyes glazed with spirits. His shirt - ripped and moldy - hung from his body like rotting flesh from a zombie. A tiny bit of spittle sat, unmoving, from his slackened lips. He limped over to us.

My co-signer and myself smiled. "Hello."

He didn't glace at me, but concentrated solely on her. He leered at her chest and thrust his hand at her to shake. She gingerly took it.

"I live in Livingston, Massachusetts," he said after a short pause.

"Oh," she said.

"Why do you sign your book with your left hand?" he asked, "if you shake hand with your right?"

She stared at him. "I don't sign books with my left hand," she replied. "I sign them with my right."

He fingered an open bag of candy in his pants pocket slowly, and with deliberate hunger.

There was the most pregnant of pauses while she shifted uncomfortably and he leered at her.

"Massachusetts," he began, "is a good place to live. I go to the Barnes and Noble there."

"Ok," she replied. "Would you like me to sign a copy of the book for you?"

He paused and looked down at her chest again.

Then he took a piece of candy out of his pocket and slowly started to suck on it. He turned and walked away without saying a word.

Not once during this interaction did he look at, or talk to, me.

There was silence for a moment while we watched him walk away.

"So..." I said. "I guess he's not a fan of the show."

We turned to face the store, our faces held high and our spirits undaunted. There were books to sign, and we had a job to do.

The Grunt-capades

2008-06-13T09:28:00.003-04:00

Hello.

Things at Booth and Noble are not always as they seem. For instance, although I may act like I care why you are interested in obtaining a particular title, I can most assuredly assert:

I do not.

I do not care the history of why you might want the book. I don't care if someone from your family read it when they were little and you now want it. I don't care if you read it when you were a child and loved it. I don't care if your husband read about it in the New York Times and you think it would be a good Father's Day present.

I don't care. Honestly. It's not that I want to hurt your feelings - I really don't mean to.

But do I come to your work and blab to you why I really want my cable? Or my life history at McDonald's? Or why I prefer white chocolate Lattes as opposed to regular ol' mocha Lattes at StarBooth?

I do not. I do not give my life history because I assume that you have other things to worry about - like making my damn sandwich, or producing a delicious frothy beverage from your magic hot wand.

Um...ok, strike that last sentence from the record. I'm not sure I want anything frothy from your hot wand, Mr. StarBooth.

So, forgive me if I do not care why you want to return an item. Is it not enough that you want to return it? Do I need a history of your un-desire for this object?

Perhaps I speak too soon. For yesterday, a gentleman came in with an opened and listened-to audio book.

Booth and Noble's policy on such acts are as follows:

We will exchange an open audio book for the same item, assuming the original is damaged. We will only refund if the audio book is unopened.

This, I think we can all safely assume, is because an opened audio book is possibly a uploaded audio book, and thus is a used audio book. It's not like we can resell an opened audio book anyway - what, one of our customers is going to buy a cling-film wrapped audio book? Not our customers - they return items because "this page is slightly folded in one corner." Prissy to the extreme.

I ask the fellow what is wrong with the audio book.

"It doesn't work right," he unhelpfully explains.

"What doesn't work right?" I ask.

"It's too quiet."

"What?"

"IT'S TOO QUIET."

"[pause]. Did you try turning up the volume?"

"I did part of the way, but it didn't help."

I look at the CD. I wonder if this is a problem with the CD, with the CD-player. I look at the man. And realize what the problem is:

he's wearing hearing aids.

"[sigh]. Let me call my manager."

And another satisfied customer of Booth and Noble gets his refund.

Perhaps he should return his hearing aids instead of all his CDs.

As I hastened to put the returned audio book back in the receiving area, I passed a young man wearing a teeshirt.

You know how lame it is to wear shirts with not-so-funny sexual innuendos on them?

For instance, "You must be ____ this tall to ride" or "your mom called and she wants me to come over and do her." (I may have made this last one up, but you get the idea).

You know what's lamer than that?

Wearing a HANDMADE sexually explicit tee-shirt.

In rather poor handwriting, written with a Sharpie marker, a young man had written on the upper portion of his right shoulder (evidently, he couldn't center it):

"I only date 10's, but I'll take 2 5's."

Ha! Ha! Ha! Just the thing to pick up women in a bookstore, no? I wonder why he decided to put that shirt on.

Actually, thinking about it...no, I don't really care.

Interesting story

Check out this interesting story from NPR about Book Returns, a process that is extremely wasteful. Turns out, when customers order books willy-nilly (a practice that Booth and Noble encourages), it costs the company an enormous amount of money and the environment an enormous amount of happiness to return, restock, and then resend the books around.

The Chronicles of Narnia

2008-06-04T12:49:00.002-04:00

Hello.

What follows is not strictly a treatise against the masses at Booth and Noble. It is, rather, the articulation of a literary debate that I have been warring for a number of years now. Although, it does touch on traditional Booth and Noble issues. I would appreciate input into the matter.

In 1950 C. S. Lewis published The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Each subsequent year, until the publication of The Last Battle, he published another in this famous series. I read the books when I was just a small lad (I read most of them in the bath, which is an image I'm sure you're all enjoying right now; me and my little Mr. Tumnus). I read them in that order: the publication order. For those who need a review, this order is as follows:

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia (1951)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
The Silver Chair (1953)
The Horse and His Boy (1954)
The Magician’s Nephew (1955)
The Last Battle (1956).

This is the order of the books in my set, as well.

In 1994, however, the American publishers of the book decided to change this order, ostensibly because Dr. Lewis preferred the new order. The order they changed it to follows not the publication date, but rather the chronological narrative structure of the series:

The Magician’s Nephew (1955)
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
The Horse and His Boy (1954)
Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia (1951)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
The Silver Chair (1953)
The Last Battle (1956)

According to the Wikipedia article about this rearrangement, the books were reordered because of a single letter Dr. Lewis wrote to a child:

“I think I agree with your order [i.e. chronological] for reading the books more than with your mother’s. The series was not planned beforehand as she thinks. When I wrote The Lion I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn't think there would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage I felt quite sure it would be the last, but I found I was wrong. So perhaps it does not matter very much in which order anyone read them. I’m not even sure that all the others were written in the same order in which they were published.”

Dr. Lewis's stepson spearheaded the rearrangment, also according to Wikipedia.

Although this probably offers too great a glance into my psyche, and consequently makes people uncomfortable, I have very strong feelings about this change, from a literary standpoint, from an authorial standpoint, and from a cultural standpoint. I don't want to overstate my case, but would it be too much to think that this change is not the result of the whining of a child, but rather the cause of the increasing lack of sophisticated reading habits of children and adults alike?

Let me state my case, first, from a literary standpoint:L

There is no good reason to re-order the books; in fact, there are nothing but bad reasons. Although the events may become chronological, the telling of those events is crucial to the gradual unfolding of the narrative. This highlights an important distinction in narrative theory: the difference between what is told and how it is told. At times, this has been called the difference between the "story" and the "discourse," or the "what" and the "way," or (specifically to film) the "fabula" and the "sjuzhet."

But it's easier to think of examples. Star Wars has an enormous "universe" created with characters and events as part of the universe that aren't in any movies, right? So, although we learn about this "universe" from the movies, the movies only tell one part of the story. It is one discourse that describes a larger story out there.

Anyway, we can think about Narnia as a world that exists, and each of Lewis's books are only seven discourses that tell seven specific stories that take place in that world.

If we order the books in their publication order, we are highlighting the discourse of Narnia - the telling of the tale becomes paramount. To order them chronologically, however, is to underscore the importance of the story of Narnia. On the face of it, this wouldn't seem to be bad thing. Learning about the story is important, and I don't want to deny this.

But what this does is take away the experience of the narrative.

Yes, when we first read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe we don't know why the wardrobe takes the children to Narnia. We don't know why there's a lamppost there. And, perhaps most magnificently, we discover Aslan along with the children, complete with the awe and stunning power they feel. Read as the first book in the series, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe opens up questions about a world that don't get answered until the sixth book: The Magician's Nephew. When these questions are finally answered, when we learn, for instance, that the wardrobe was constructed from the wood of a tree grown from a seed taken from Narnia, we experience one of those once-in-a-lifetime shudders down our spines. When I first read that, it was a put-the-book-down-and-think moment. We get the same feeling in movies today: when we first watched Star Wars: Episode IV and learned that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father, it was a shocking moment. If we watched the prequels first, however, we already knew that. It loses it's shock value, it's excitement. Instead of surprise, we experience suspense.

Additionally, any foreshadowing put into the series of books by Lewis is lost in the re-ordering. In The Silver Chair the children are told a brief story about a boy named Shasta and a horse named Bree. This horse and boy are the protagonists in the book A Horse and His Boy. To hear this mention without having previously read A Horse and His Boy creates a nice surprise when we get to the book and learn what happened. We then remember back to The Silver Chair and understand the reference. Not only does this make the connections between the books more salient, but it also brings the reader into that connection: the reader must actively search for and connect the disparate parts. To have read A Horse and His Boy first, however, the reader then encounters the mention of the story in The Silver Chair and the connection is made for him/her. There is not the sense of discovery, or of activity, involved.

Other minor issues crop up. Why, as Wikipedia points out, would the The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe have written: "None of the children knew who Aslan was, any more than you do," if we have experienced Aslan twice before?

In sum, to move the emphasis of the narrative from the discourse to the story is to make clear the complex, and interesting, narrative elements present in a disjointed and multi-linear narrative.

This brings me, conveniently, to my second point: the authorial standpoint.

Simply put, although it might seem that change the order of the books subverts Lewis's authorship, in reality, it actually reinforces the author's role in the construction of this narrative world.

Let me explain what I mean. We commonly think of authors as people who construct worlds that readers passively experience. The ultimate authority on a piece of literature is the person that thought it up, right? Orson Welles is the director of Citizen Kane, therefore, we can state that he is the author of that film, and the person completely in charge of the meaning, the subtleties, and the subtexts.

Yet, this is not the case. Authors may scribe the words, but it is the audience who interprets them. Shakespeare is wildly considered one of the greatest authors the West has produced. Yet, his plays are performed in a multitude of ways with a multitude of different interpretations. Who is to say what Shakespear intended? All we know is what we think of the play, the book, the film. The audience writes the text anew each time it is experienced.

The same is true of Narnia. I read it the first time when I was a child, and was taken by the powerful story of good vs. evil. When I read it as a college student, I was interested by the Christian allegory. Now when I read them, I see how the characters represent a bygone time period. Each time I read the books differently, and I understand different stories: some of which Lewis may have intended and some of which he may not have.

To read the books in the published order, I experience these different readings in an independent and unique manner. I might make connections between parts of stories - oh, this fight with a monster is different from that fight with a monster - that Lewis may or may not have intended. To read them in the re-ordered, chronological order, however, is to asert Lewis's reading of the story. Here, we are told by the publisher, is the correct order. This immediately limits our interpretation of the story by silencing our readings. No matter what you think about The Silver Chair, including the fable told about the horse and his boy in that story, in a re-ordered reading, it will necessarily be tempered by what Lewis (and the publishers) have deemed to go before it, namely A Horse and His Boy.

This prescribed reading severely limits the creativity and exploration that comes with reading a book full of wonder and mystery. Imagine reading Harry Potter and starting with the scene where Voldemort kills Harry's parents. There would be no mystery, no build-up of suspense for when we finally get the scene, towards the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Which, at long last, brings me to my final point: the re-ordering of The Chronicles of Narnia is detrimental from a cultural standpoint.

For all the talk recently about the complexity of new television programs (Lost is unique because of the flashbacks and flashforwards!), it is really an old trend. The first novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, is told in fragments and narrative flashbacks. To read a book in this way, or to watch a narratively complex television show, is to experience narrative in a new way. Steven Johnson's wonderful Everything Bad is Good for You details how this complexity is creating readers who are more mature, more intelligent, and more capable of handling complex tasks. Thinking multi-chronologically frees us from "thinking inside the box." We get used to thinking from many different angles, looking at problems from different viewpoints.

To re-order the Narnia books is to limit these different viewpoints. It's not enough that the customers at the bookstore ask to find the shortest books for their children to read (I usually recommend The Postmodern Condition, as it is only about 80 pages long, minus footnotes). They also have to make the books less complex and easier to understand. Why? Why do we want our novels simplistic and spoonfed? I'm not saying we have to give our children Gravity's Rainbow or anything, but let them experience mystery, suspense, connection and interconnectedness. Let them read the books in a way that doesn't explain everything right away.

Culturally, when we dumb down our literature, water down the media our children - and we ourselves - experience, we tell them (and us) that it's ok to be passive, that it's ok to read unquestioningly. We should read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and wonder why the hell a lamppost is in the middle of the forest. It gets us thinking - critically. When we finally discover why (Jardis threw a portion of an English Lamppost into Narnia as it was being created by Aslan), we have already thought about the importance of this. Perhaps we foresaw why the lamppost was there - perhaps we disagree with how Lewis actuated this appearance. Either way, we are thinking .

The literature we read, or have read to us, as children helps shape who we are, and what we become. I have no doubt that my own philosophy on life has come from the books I read when I was little: The Phantom Tollbooth, Ender's Game, The Three Investigators, Ramona the Pest series, etc. If we start to make these stories less complex, less narratively interesting, what are we doing to the children that have yet to read the stories? What are we telling them: yes, there was a different way to read these, but you'll find it easier to read it this way. Oh, and why not just skip the big words. And next time, find a shorter book to read.

It's a slippery slope.

So the next time you're in the children's department of a bookstore and you see the Narnia books on the shelf (and you'll see a lot of them), I urge you to rearrange them. I doubt you'll find them in the "published" order, because the publishers generally agree to put them in the revised order.

Or, at least, buy a set and read them in the published order, like I did when I was 10: one chapter at a time, in the bath.

You Think You Know What It Is To Be A Grunt?

2008-06-02T21:02:00.002-04:00

Hello.

My apologies for not posting in a few weeks - you see, I moved, and I have found myself both Internet-less and sleep-less for a number of nights. Plus, there are always new things to hang on the walls and new parts of the lease to break (pets? Why the hell not. No flags? Damn it, I'll hang the flag if I want to. Petty arson? You better believe it).

Anyway, so I haven't posted for awhile. But that doesn't mean that the customers at Booth and Noble have matured. No, if anything, like the hero of Martin Amis' Time's Arrow , these customers get less mature as they progress through time (although, to be fair, few of them are Nazi war criminals).

To whit:

It is summer reading time - the time when thousands of schooled children arrive in what, to the, must be a wondrous playground of imagination and joyous amusement: the bookstore. "Joy!" they think to themselves, "we get to read about mentally handicapped geniuses and strange men who hide things in trees -- all summer!"

No, the children are wonderful - full of bright vivacity and loveliness. It's the parents who mystify me.

Take, for example, the typical parent. Walking up to me while I'm near the children's department, she says:

"Do you have any books like this ," as she holds up a Matt Christopher sports book, "but for girls ?"

"Ma'am," I say, "girls can play sports too."

She looks at me like I just ate my own pants. "Not MY girl. She will like horses , isn't that right Betty?"

Betty, decked out in a baseball cap and a pair of cleats, nods her head, sadly holding onto a Pony Pals book.

Or, for example, the parents who says to their child: "you're not smart enough for this book," or, "this book is too long for you; let's find one a better length." These are the Oprah book club parents - the Secret generation, the Last Lecture devotees who like their literature like they like their literature like they like their politicians: white bred, old, and full of safe platitudes.

Of course, you often find those people that probably haven't given these things called "books" that much thought at all - the people, like this parent, who walks their daughter through the fiction section, trying to find a book:

"How on earth do they arrange these? It looks completely random!"

"Mom, it's by the author's name!"

"Oh, that makes sense."

"Yeah, duh."

"I always liked this alphabull organization. When it's alphabull, it's easy!"

But even some hardcore readers think they know what it's like to be a Grunt. It's a lot more than knowing the alphabutt. According to one gentleman who came through my cashwrap line the other day, it involves knowing things about money too:

He trailed a small daughter behind him like the detritus from sneeze. When she lagged too far behind, he would snort her back into his arms. When he arrived at the line, he said to her:

"When you give money to a clerk, you need to make sure it all faces the same way. This makes it easier for them to count!"

She nods her head; I begin to experience an emotion I haven't felt at Booth and Noble in a long time: understanding.

Then he takes six dollars, in ones, in his hand, crumples them all and throws them on the counter.

"Don't ever work retail, honey," he says to his daughter as he holds his hand out for his change.

Of course, it's not just the parents that know the best way to run things. Often, many customers of Booth and Noble believe that their way is the best way.

Booth and Noble, of course, has a cafe which serves many fine, overpriced, and much, much worse-for-you-than-you-think foods, some of which can be found at Starbooth. At seven o'clock in the evening, a woman comes up to the Information Kiosk and says to me:

"Excuse me. Is your manager here? I wish to complain about your cafe."

"Absolutely ma'am," I say. "Can I tell them what the complaint is?"

"Oh, it's not that big a deal," she says. "But. Your cafe is out of soup." She pauses. "Did you hear what I said? OUT OF SOUP." She looks at me. "THERE. WAS. NO. SOUP." My non-reaction starts to bug her. "It is dinner time. And YOU HAVE NO SOUP! What sort of establishment is this? I WANTED SOUP!" She starts to work herself up now: "I WANT TO TALK TO A MANAGER. THERE WAS NO SOUP! THIS IS UNCONSCIONABLE!"

Yes, it is. Unconscionable.

Let us not forget what "unconscionable" means. I quote from Merriam-Webster here:

"not guided or controlled by conscience" i.e., not answerable to "moral goodness" .

Let's list some other unconscionable things, shall we?

Torture

The Holocaust

Dog fighting

Not having "Chicken and Wild Rice" soup at Booth and Noble

.

Hey, guess what? We're right next door to a Panera, eh? They even have more than one type of soup at a time - imagine that, a choice! That's, what, super-conscionable?

Torture.

Maybe that's what being a Grunt is all about. I now offer, for your consideration, a virtually unedited transcript of a phone call I received yesterday at Booth and Noble:

[ring ring]

"Hello, thank you for calling your local Booth and Noble. How can I help you?"

"Yes, do you have [trying hard to pronounce] Charles ... Dar...win... and the Voyager of the Beagle?"

"Ma'am, do you mean The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin? I'm pretty sure we have that, let me just go check on the shelf."

[I check on the "evolution" shelf and, lo and behold, we have it.]

"Ma'am, I've got it right here for you."

"Now, is that in hard cover? This is a gift for someone."

"No, I'm afraid we've only got it in paperback. I can order you hardcover copy, thoug - it would come in in 3-5 business days."

"Don't new books always come out in hardcover?"

"..."

"...You know, like Stephen King always has a hardcover?"

"...Ma'am, maybe we're not talking about the same book. I'm holding Charles Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle in my hand."

"Yes, this is the book reviewed in this week's Wall Street Journal ."

"Well, ma'am, this book isn't new - it's over 150 years old. It came out in the middle of the 1800s."

"Yes, it's Darwin's Joyful Journey of Discovery."

"Yes, so would you like me to order the hardcover, or would you like the paperback?"

"I don't want either. I want the modern book."

"Ma'am, are you looking for a different book?"

"No, I want the one from the Wall Street Journal."

"...I'm holding Charles Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle for you."

"NO! YOU AREN'T LISTENING TO ME!. The article says," and she starts to read:

Next year is Darwin year: the bicentennial of the great man's birth and the 150th anniversary of "The Origin of Species." The book is not the easiest of reads, but it is less of a trudge than Charles Darwin's four volumes on barnacles or his 15 works on topics as distinct as climbing plants and the formation of mold by earthworms. They tell, in plain and sometimes pedestrian prose, the tale of a life of observation and experiment that founded modern biology.

"The Voyage of the Beagle," in contrast, sings. Its language is that of a young man intoxicated by the tropics

"That's the one I want!"

"Ma'am, that sounds a lot like the book I've got in my hands."

"NO! DAMN IT YOU'RE NOT LISTENING? ARE YOU RETARDED? I want the modern book."

"I don't know what you mean, ma'am. Perhaps you could help me understand by providing me with some more information."

"Listen:"

Darwin looked back in his attempts to understand the present. He scarcely considered what the future might bring, for in his view evolution was so slow, and life so stable, that no great shifts were to be expected. A glance forward on the 200th anniversary of his birth shows how wrong he was. The world is already a far less interesting place than it was when he set forth on his circumnavigation and will soon become even less so: and no future explorer will ever write a book so full of the joy of unspoiled nature as is "The Voyage of the Beagle."

"I want this modern book."

"Ma'am, perhaps Darwin was just prescient?"

"DON'T YOU GET SMART WITH ME, BOY! WHAT'S YOUR NAME?"

I tell her.

"I'M GOING TO TELL YOUR MANAGERS THAT THEY'VE HIRED A RETARDED BOY TO WORK FOR THEM!"

"Ok, ma'am. How about I hold this book for you and then you can come in and look at it, and if it's not what you're looking for, you don't have to buy it and we can order something else."

"That's more like it. Find that book I want. Is it in good condition?"

"Yes, ma'am, it hardly looks touched."

"HARDLY? I don't want any books that have been touched!"

"Ma'am? You're not going to find a book that's untouched."

"Put it down! Wrap it in a bag!"

"What?"

"I want you to wrap it in a bag, you ass. Stop touching it!"

"Ok." I wrapped it in a bag. "Under what name can I hold it?"

"Excuse me?"

"What is your name?"

"Why would I give you my name?"

"So that we can give you the book when you come in."

"I'll come in later today. Won't you have it?"

"Yes, but we won't know it's for you unless we put your name on it."

"You're not getting my name."

"Ma'am, I don't know how to identify the book for you if you don't give me your name."

"I'm not giving you my name! I DON'T WANT TO BE MANHANDLED!"

"Ma'am, I won't manhandle you."

"You may write down Nancy. It is not my name, but I shall use it when I pick up the book."

"Alright." I write down Nancy, put the slip of paper around the book, which is wrapped in a bag, and put it behind the cash registers.

The ultimate punchline to this story is that "Nancy" came in later and didn't buy the book. I don't know why - I like to think that it's because too many people had touched the book.

Or maybe she was looking for a book for a girl, and she found a book for a boy instead.

Links

Hey, a friend pointed out this site for other great customer stories - very funny: Not Always Right .

I'm a Grunt...A GRUNT...I SAID A GRUNT

2008-05-22T10:07:00.002-04:00

Hello.

There is nothing more fun at Booth and Noble than experiencing the sheer wonderment at the multitudes of people with what could kindly be termed "issues" in the world.

For example, here's your thought for the day. If you are deaf, or just extremely hard of hearing, don't call a bookstore and try to have a conversation. This is not because I find it particularly annoying to talk to you, but because everyone in the store is going to find out your personal business.

I mean, on the one hand, it's pretty damn funny to be a Grunt standing at the information desk screaming at the top of your voice:

"NO, WE DON'T HAVE IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME FOR DUMMIES. WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO LOOK UP ANOTHER BOOK? I SAID, DO YOU WANT ME TO LOOK UP ANOTHER BOOK?

[pause, pause.]

"YES, WE DO HAVE A COPY OF WHORE . WOUDL YOU ALSO LIKE ANOTHER URBAN FICTION NOVEL THAT YOU WOULD ENJOY? PERHAPS CANDY LICKER? OR, GIRLS FROM DA HOOD 2?"

[pause, pause.]

"WELL, MAYBE NEXT TIME. I'LL LOOK UP THE NEXT BOOK FOR YOU. WHAT IS IT CALLED? I SAID, WHAT IS IS CALLED?

I SAID, WHAT IS IT CALLED?

[pause, pause].

"NO, I'M SORRY, WE DON'T HAVE TICKLE HIS PICKLE: THE HANDS ON GUIDE TO PENIS PLEASING ."

I always make sure to be more articulate and to be sure to specify the entire title of a book if I'm on the phone yelling in this manner. Well, it's for the customer's benefit. What if she wanted a different Tickle His Pickle ?

But then there's the more difficult customers: the semi-regulars. Now, the regulars at Booth and Noble aren't always all bad. Some are quite nice and it can be enjoyable to chat with them, especially when they also have the sense to leave you alone to do your job.

But then there are the ones who are only semi-regular. (Perhaps they need IBS for Dummies?). They're the ones who come in and know just enough of our "regular" patter to be annoying, but not enough that we actually care about chatting.

For example, a man comes through my line at the cash registers:

"Hello," I say as he steps up to the counter and puts his books down. Immediately, he snatches them back.

He smiles.

This is a bad sign.

"Aren't you supposed to say, 'How can I be of service?' he sneers."

I felt dirty, like I was just scolded by my pimp.

"I am not required to say that, sir."

"What about, 'How can I assist you?'"

"Nope. I don't have to say anything except, 'Do you want to save 10% with a membership card'."

"What if I need...assistance." He turned his head, coyly.

"We have an extensive self-help section, if that's what you need."

"What if I need your assistance?"

"Well, then I'd be happy to scan your books." And at that I grabbed his books and started to scan them.

There was a slight pause.

"Aren't you going to ask me if I can save 10% with a membership card?"

Grunts in Awe

2008-05-18T08:44:00.004-04:00

Hello.

I know I shouldn't be, but I have more and more often been surprised by how weird the human race is. I shouldn't be surprised because I work at Booth and Noble, and every day I am surrounded by the odd and brain-damaged.

For example, yesterday, a woman holding THREE BABIES came up to me while I was standing at the information desk and threw a book on the counter: it was This Much I Know Is True by Wally Lamb. She frantically clutched babies one, two, and three and looked up at me:

"Do you know what this is about?" she demanded. And then, without a pause to let me answer, she continued: "I can't stand it when they don't put synopses on the book. How am I supposed to know what it's about? What am I, a mind reader ?"

I looked at her and said that I didn't know what the book was about, but I'd be only too happy to look it up for her. Which I did, and then printed out a sheet of paper that contained the said information.

She glanced at the sheet, sighed, adjusted the babies, and put the sheet down, nearly unread.

"Fine, I'll take it." She grabbed the book (jostling a baby or two) and headed up to the front of the store.

Later that day the phone rang. I picked up with my usually Booth and Noble spiel:

"Thank you for calling Booth and Noble, which may or may not be local depending on where you live and what you consider 'local.' How may I help you?"

"Yes," the tentative, shaky voice replied. "This may be a weird question, though."

And it is at this point that I took out a sheet of paper and a pen so that I could record, as best I could with the limited mobility allowed by a pen held onto the table by a chain, the events for this Booth and Noble blog. Let the recounting begin!

"Go ahead ma'am. I'm ready."

"Well, I don't have a computer. Or a car."

"Ok."

"But I've been having...a tough time in my life recently." And then she emitted a sigh so violent it shuddered through the phone and literally depressed to death my inner ear.

"Go on...? How may I, a book store Grunt, be of service?"

"Well..."

"Yes...?"

"Do you know any psychics?"

And then a very pregnant pause by yours truly, followed by: "Not personally, no."

"Hmm...well, do you know Sylvia Browne?"

"Yes, she is the dead-looking lady who writes about paranormal abilities and speaking to the dead."

"That's the one, yes. Do you have her phone number?"

Now this was getting too good. I was almost gleeful, with the amount of sheer weirdness of this phone call.

"I don't," I said straight-faced. "I don't have her phone number."

"Well," the woman replied, "I'm trying to deal with some real heavy stuff. And I could use a psychic."

"Have you looked in your local phone book?" I helpfully ask.

"Yes," comes the inevitable reply. "But none of them have the skills of Ms. Browne."

And so †hen the kicker:

"So, is there something I can help you with?"

"Yes. Could you...look up the name of a psychic for me?"

Yes, I know; you were all thinking (as I was as well, at the time) that she was going to ask me to do a reading. I was all prepared as well. I even had a tarot deck with me, which a rude and dirty customer had left on the information desk not half an hour before.

"Ma'am," I said, with a despondent air. "I'm afraid I don't know any psychics. Could you look online?"

"I don't have a computer."

"Well, could you go to your local library and use their computers?"

"I don't have a car. I suppose I could get my brother to drive me, but he wouldn't like the fact I'm going to talk to a psychic."

"Oh?" I ask, pen poised.

"Yeah, he's one of them wacky Born Agains, and he thinks psychics are just people possessed by demons."

Just? Just people possessed by demons?

"Well, it seems like you're in a bit of a pickle."

"Yes, well. Thanks for trying."

"You're welcome ma'am. And ma'am?"

"Yes?"

"Good luck."

Sometimes, I'm just in awe of people. Their perseverance. Their tenacity. Their drive of insatiable curiosity.

And then I walk through the doors of Booth and Noble, and I realize that no, most of them just want to find the "non-fiction" section and call it a day.

PS If you're interested in a rant-astic version of working at Booth and Noble, check out Book Wench . Highly entertaining.

I See...a Grunt in Your Future!

2008-05-10T21:29:00.002-04:00

Hello.

This is a story that children may not want to read.

There are a great many things that occur on a daily basis at Booth and Noble that may have readers of this blog scratching their heads with dazed wonderment. How on earth can this happen? Who does this?

For instance, take The Masturbator .

Here is a man who will spend nearly an hour in the one stall in the men's room. How do I know he is yanking his baloney pony and not just filled with one giant constipated mass?

He is standing facing the toilet, with his pants around his ankles.

He is not urinating.

It may occur to you now, dear readers, that I know too much about this man. That I have, sadly, spent time in the rest room waiting for this man to spurt his last spurt, to jettison his homunculi, into the water system of the city.

You would be correct.

At Booth and Noble, even we Grunts have to use the facilities from time to time. And when I have to wait an hour to release my inner demons, because some man is Jean-Clauding his Van Dam, I am not in the least bit annoyed.

Today, for instance, I was standing there as this man grunted and shunted his way towards the inevitably anti-climatic end. His feet faced the toilet and his pants were all the way down. I heard the charmingly rustic ripple of the toilet paper as he pulled reams and reams of it out of the holder. This went on for a number of minutes, which actually means he pulled almost an entire roll of toilet paper free from its moorings.

The toilet flushed.

It flushed again.

It flushed one more time.

I, bravely, stepped forward.

[Knock Knock].

Pause.

"Sir are you ok?"

Pause.

No answer.

[Knock Knock].

Pause.

"Sir," a little louder now: "ARE YOU OK?"

And then, with the flourish of a man who has been told that the OCB is now open for business, I hear:

"Yeeeeessssss...."

And then, (I am not making this up), the distinct sound of a "blip!" in the water. As if he were spitting in the bowl.

He exited the stall, nodded at me, and then left the bathroom. He neglected to wash his hands.

The Moral of the Story
The next time you are at a Booth and Noble, be very careful what you touch.

From a story of a man who found pleasure in the most discrete of stalls to a story of a man who did not:

After this incident in the bathroom, I am wandering through the cafe area of Booth and Noble, doing my rounds, collecting the books like washed up literary driftwood from the beach of commercialism.

It is 6pm: the dating hour.

A young man and a young woman slyly approach each other. He is short-haired, muscular, and tanned. She is verging on supermodel: thin, buxom, with tight jeans and a barely-there top. In any other situation they might be confused for the top 2% of attractiveness. They glance, meet, and shake hands. They sit at a table and the man offers to buy her a coffee and a delicious bakery item. He wants her: most of the rest of Booth and Noble, glancing over, do as well.

It is a first date: young love.

I swing by the cafe every 20 minutes or so, intending to pick up books and other detritus as I make my way through the story. But eventually, I start to walk by not to find extra books, but because I am so fascinated by this first date.

He: slumped in his chair, eyes glazed like a donut, staring into his coffee like he could see The Secret to leaving (hint: think really hard about it).

She: Talking talking talking talking talking.

A snippet of her babble: "I don't like my one sister, but I do like my older sister because she doesn't like my other sister. My brother is ok, but not my cousin who is not like me at all. She likes my sisters."

Every time I walk by, every 20 minutes, he is slumped lower and she is talking faster.

Every time I walk by, he looks at me, as if to ask me with his eyes to find an excuse to kick them out: a foot on a chair, perhaps? Spilling coffee all over the place? Masturbating in the bathroom?

If only he knew that such activities are not only permitted, but seem to be encouraged, at Booth and Noble.

They finally leave at 10pm, when the store closes. He walks out, slowly, followed by her. I hear her say, as they leave:

"This was really fun. You are a great listener. We should do this again!"

And he turns to walk into the bathroom.

The Call of the Grunt

2008-04-29T08:06:00.006-04:00

Hello.

As you may or may not realize, the Grunt's job at Booth and Noble is more than helping customers find the "Janet Evanovich" section, or letting people know that, no, we don't have a copy machine. In a bookstore.

No, part of our job is also to field questions from the telephone. The phone rings, and we, as Grunts, must answer the phone like this:

"Thank you for calling Booth and Noble. How can I help you today?"

However, some of our employees answer the phone differently:

"Huh."

If it's busy at the Information Kiosk when the phone rings, we're supposed to answer it as such:

"Thank you for calling Booth and Noble. Can you hold please?"

When it's not busy, we're supposed to help the person find whatever they're looking for. However, more often than not, the people that call have no idea what they want. And they want us to find it.

Case in point: the other day a man calls and I answer the phone:

"Thank you for calling Booth and Noble. How can I help you today?"

"Yeah," he rasps, "do you have that book Frankenstein?

"Sure, by Mary Shelly. Do you want me to hold a copy for you?"

"No, that's not it."

"Um...I'm pretty sure Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein."

"No, it's written by a dude."

"I'm pretty sure Frankenstein was written by a woman."

"NO! IT WASN'T!" he yells.

I look confused. Then a manager comes over, and I ask her opinion about what to do. She looks at me, shakes her head, and then goes to the fiction section. A few second later: This appears.

Damn you, Dean Koontz! Damn you for making me appear a fool!

In light of this, I decided to be less literate with the rest of my phone calls.

The phone rang later. I pick up:

"huh?"

"Hi, is this Booth and Noble?"

"huh." This one sounds more affirmative than the last.

"I was wondering if you could help me." It was a pleasant, feminine voice.

"Sure," I say, perking up. It's not often there is a pleasant voice on the other end of the line.

"I was wondering if you could help me find some magazines," she finished saying.

"Sure," I say, not knowing where this was going to lead.

"Ok, I'm not sure of the title, but I think it's something like Tattoo Life ."

As it happens, we had three copies of Tattoo life , or whatever it was, so I held them for her. She came in later that day to pick them up.

When she came in, she looked like a troll. Actually, she probably looked like a troll most of the time, not just when she came into my store. Like she just decided that day, "well, I'd better put on my bulbous and veinous nose today, time for a trip to Booth and Noble!"

Anyway, she picks up the copies of Tattoo Life and proceeds to come through my check out line (I was at this point working at the cash registers). She points to the cover.

"Do you know who this is?" the troll rasped.

The woman on the cover looked like a hooker with a bad GPA. She was, of course, covered in tattoos, but more so than that, looked like she'd been pulled off the street by a rich lawyer who needs an escort for functions and then will fall in love with her but only if she kisses him on the lips. That's what she looked like. Here is another example of the type of sex worker she resembled.

I responded: "no, I don't."

The old woman then leans in mischievously: "That's my daughter."

I hastily loll my tongue back into my mouth and respond with a choked: "eep. Really? I bet you're very proud!"

The woman responds: "I am as proud as a Mother can be." And then she touches the pentangle around her neck and looks at me lasciviously.

Later that day, another woman comes in. She is short and stocky and looks a little like Liza Minelli. As I ring up her sale she does that thing that all sales clerks hate beyond anything else:

She doesn't stop chatting.

Now, I'm really happy for her that
- her son is out of prison
- her father's heart attack isn't serious
- her life is better than it was a year ago
- she thinks Georgie Bush Jr. is the best president we've had since Jesus
- she hates high gas prices (even though it's actually cheap, comparatively .
- she finally found that book she was looking for

but I don't need to hear about it. Especially when it's near the end of the workday.

So she's mindlessly rattling off this stuff and I am not even pretending anymore . Usually I try and pretend to listen, to throw in some "uh-huhs" and "yeahs" and "amen!s" into the mix. But this time I was so annoyed I literally said nothing until we finished the transaction. At that point, I said:

"Thank you and have a nice night," to which she replied:

"Danka schoen."

If this had been a "normal" interaction between two people, even something as odd as "danka schoen" coming out of a normally-English-speaking mouth wouldn't be completely out of the ordinary. But this is not "normal." This is Booth and Noble.

So, of course, she starts to sing.

"Danke Schoen, darling Danke Schoen.
Thank you for all the joy and pain.
Picture shows, second balcony, was the place we'd meet, second seat, go Dutch treat, you were sweet..."
and dancing in the front of the store. Meanwhile, I'm standing there like a fart in a bucket looking at her, holding her bag in my outstretched hand.

She finally stops and comes back. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she exclaims, "but I work at a community theatre..."

Side note: a statement which wins the "obvious statement of the year award"

"...and sometimes I just break into song!" Then she laughs, this horrible cackle of a laugh. Then she suddenly, and unexpectedly, stops.

She looks at me.

"I better stop. He gets mad at me if I sing a lot." She looks around. Leans in closer and nods her head in a particular direction: "If I don't stop, he'll hit me!"

I look around. Not a soul in sight...

She silently turns around and walks out, into the ether of the night. I close my eyes , take a deep breath, and say,

"Can I help the next person in line, please?"

Shout outs

Here is a new section of the blog, much requested - some shout outs. Various places I've gone, seen, or been mentioned on (selfish self-promotion notwithstanding).

Shout out to Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, a snarky, yet wildly intelligent blog written by sassy ladies about the latest romance novels. Good stuff. The other day at Booth and Noble I found a romance book (watch out - link to Amazon.com) about a supernatural hunk with a bi-penis. Or, rather, not one penis split into two, but two penises for the price of one! Amazing...

The Bugle by John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman, a podcast of exceptional wit and humour. (Note: this is the correct type of humour).

DIRECTION NEWS!

Oh, and I was asked for directions this week: well, sorta. Not directions, per se, but more confirmation: I was walking the dog when a man comes up to me. "We on fourth street?" he asks. "Yes," I affirm. He walks away without a second word. So perhaps it wasn't directions, so much as a friendly reminder: we, indeed, are on Fourth Street.

Directions: Second post today

2008-04-21T16:13:00.002-04:00

Hello.

As promised, I was asked for directions today. I don't know why this is, but if you were on a crowded street, walking amongst the people there, wondering how to get from here to another place, would you ask the people who are standing around doing nothing, or would you ask the one person who was a) walking a dog and b) listening to his generic mp3 device ?

Well, this gentlemen thought that he would ask me.

"Hey!"

I continue to walk, oblivious to his exclamation.

"Hey!!!" [note the extra exclamation mark - this means he was REALLY excited].

I stop and take This American Life out of my ear. "Can I help you?"

"Do you know how to get to second street?"

I look at him blankly for a second.

"We're on second street."

He looks up.

"Oh, not second street. Second Avenue!"

I told him that I didn't know where second avenue was, and this was not a lie. Then he told me the kicker:

"I'm looking for a restaurant. It's called Te Diablo."

I still didn't know, but now I was intrigued. I went home and generic search engined it. Nothing.

Does not exist.

But I found second avenue!

Romestern Times, and the Man-Dominanted World of Books

2008-04-21T06:41:00.005-04:00

Hello.

To be honest, I never know what to expect from a day at Booth and Noble. Will I find that the people that come in for The Last Lecture will be friendly when I tell them that the publisher didn't publish enough copies of the book? Will the stone me? Will the threaten that Oprah herself will open her mouth to devour my soul?

Being a Grunt at Booth and Noble is a lot like walking across hot coals in your bare feet. On the one hand, you will never experience pain like it again in your entire life. On the other hand, you get to experience the thrill of dying again, and again, and again.

Take, for example, my experience yesterday at Booth and Noble. While nothing extraordinarily painful happened yesterday, I found myself slowly dying bit by painful bit as the day wore on.

And, to be honest, I can't even take credit for this first story: it didn't happen to me. In fact, it wouldn't have happened to me if it had happened to me. I'll explain what I mean as I go.

The phone rings and a co-worker answers. She runs through the traditional Booth and Noble greeting: "Thank you for calling your local Booth and Noble. This is Jenny. How can I help you?" [note: the rest of this story comes from Jenny]

The man then replied as if the entire world depended on this one conversation: "ARE YOU THE MANAGER?"

Jenny: "No, I'm not. Is there something I can help you with?"

Man: "No, there's nothing YOU can help me with. I have a major problem and I need to speak to a manager."

Jenny: "Ok, I can connect you. Can you tell me what this is regarding?"

Man: "DON'T YOU DARE! DON'T YOU DARE! This is PERSONAL business. I'm going to report you to your district manager. Do you like your job, MISS ? Because you're not going to have it for much longer."

Jenny: "Alright, I'll connect you to the manager."

Jenny then transfers the call over to the manager. A few minutes later, the manager comes over to Jenny and myself and asks us about the call.

"Was everything ok?" asked Jenny.

"Yes," said the manager. "He just wanted to speak to a man..."

"...ager," I finished. "Yes, but was...?"

"No," said the manager. "He wanted to speak to a man . He didn't think women worked in Bookstores."

I should point out here that not only do women make up the majority of the book workforce in my Booth and Noble, but that they do in most Booth and Nobles across the country. In addition, all of my managers (5) are women, the Booth and Noble cafe manager is a woman, and the district manager is a woman.

We live in enlightened times. But just try telling that to Mr. Man on the phone.

So, just to cheer Jenny up, who was understandably shaken by this encounter with Mr. Sensitive, I showed her a new game. You can play at home as well. It's called "Romestern Times."

You take a Romance Novel (this is the first one to appear when I typed "romance novel cover" into Google Images), and a Western novel (this is the first one when I typed in "Western Novel Cover"). Read a friend the title of one of th books, and then the title of the other.

I guarantee that 75% of the time, you won't be able to tell which is a Romance and which is a Western.

As Romances are geared predominantly towards women and Westerns predominantly towards men, I guess we can see that there probably isn't much of a difference anyway between the sexes.

Long absences and fresh starts

2008-04-18T20:15:00.003-04:00

Hello.

First of all, apologies. When I stepped away from Booth and Noble on Dec 31, 2007, I expected an absence of only a few short days. Instead, I found myself drifting in and out of various experiences, surfacing only a few short hours a day. These surfaces, few and far between, were not spent blogging, but spent doing other things. I found that the further away from the blog I got, the harder it was to re-appear, and the more lame I felt. It was a self-defeating cycle of poverty.

But here I am. Back again. Renewed, refreshed, and reworn.

My absence has been for a few reasons, but one of the main ones is because there has been a post-holiday dearth of people at Booth and Noble. This is to be expected, for the majority of holiday shoppers are those few people that emerge, once a year, to feast their beady eyes on what they "intellectually" know are called books, but aren't quite sure what they look like any more.

This crowd is the bane of Booth and Noble, but it is the bread and butter of Booth and Noble.

It is also the creme of the Booth and Noble blog.

Therefore, when that creme runs dry, what we are left with is a pitiful few "regulars" who, while annoying in their own way, are nothing compared to what we Grunts refer to as the "Unwashed masses...of body"

One such unwashed mass came up to me the other day at Booth and Noble, however, and asked me a question. Such is their want.

She says, in a voice like a cross between a pig's oink and the squeal of a cat getting drained of blood, "Do you have...medical...dictionary...and other...dictionary?"

I look at her oddly, because I'm concerned that she might be attracting daemons with her croaked voice.

"Yes, we have both, if you'd like to follow me." I walk her to the medical books, and hand her a medical dictionary. "This should solve all your medical needs," I say cheerfully as we head to the "other" dictionaries.

When we get there, I ask "what sort of dictionary are you looking for?"

"One that...I can use...and so...can my son...who is four."

I stare blankly at her, not knowing whether to recommend the Oxford or the Oxford. I finally decide to offer this: an all-in-one.

"Why...would I...get this?" she scabs.

"Well, you could use the dictionary to look up words, and it also comes with a Thesaurus."

She looks at me like I just peed on her leg. "What...is a thesaurus?"

I stare at her. Long, hard looks - puzzling out if she was for real, or if I was on camera.

"A...thesaurus," I start, and then continue when I notice she isn't laughing, "is a book of synonyms.

Those of you who know, will know.

"What...is a synonym?" she asks.

"A synonym is a word that means the same thing as another word."

"That's stupid," she says.

"..and it's idiotic," I finish.

Finally, the kicker:

"Will...I need...a thesaurus...in school?" she asks. "I'm studying...to be a nurse..."

Now, I ask you dear reader, what is a synonym for "scared to go to the nurse?"

She ended up buying the thesaurus, so maybe she can tell us.

Regardless, I am going to make it a goal to write one of these a week from now on. The fine folks at Alterati.com have kindly encouraged me to continue, and to be honest I have been feeling the loss of Booth and Noble quite strongly. However, I think I would like to also start a new feature, while we're here:

It has become apparent to me that I possess a superpower. I'm not sure I belong on Heroes , mainly because I'm not lame, but my superpower is pretty cool.

Once a week, no matter where I am, no matter what I'm doing...I get asked for directions. I might be walking the dog, listening to my generic mp3 player, hanging out with friends, shooting crack on the sidewalk - someone will ask me directions to somewhere. I can virtually guarantee it if I'm on vacation - someone will ask.

So, I will record these. It is time the world knew of my power!*

*Note: power does not equate to actually knowing where to direct people. Only that I will be asked. If I do not like the looks of you, or if you are wearing a shirt that has a "I'm-so-cute-I-was-purchased-online" phrase on it, I will direct you incorrectly.

Odd Lad, Syne?

2007-12-31T13:35:00.000-05:00

Hello.

A long time ago, when I first decided to document the goings-on of the Grunts at Booth and Noble, I made three promises to myself.

"Self," I said, "just because God, or Google, or Godoogle, has given you the power to put this stuff up online, does not give you the right to mock those less fortunate that you."

"Yes, but self," I replied, doesn't that mean I will have no fodder? Nothing to write about?"

"True, true, self," I responded. But perhaps we should lay down some ground rules.

And so were set in digital stone the following rules:
1) Booth and Noble would provide an equal opportunity mocking. No one is spared, therefore everyone is equal. Stupidity is not dependent on age, sex, gender, size, race, orientation, or hair color. However, there would be NO jokes about the Eskimo people. Not because they're offensive, but really, Eskimo's don't read the Internet too much. They're not too "Inuit."

2) That being said, I would refrain from deliberately mocking the following groups of people: children, the mentally handicapped people that come into the store and dance and sing, and the managerial staff.

And on this, the eve of a new year, I propose to break one of those rules.

So this kid walks into the music department yesterday. He's probably about thirteen or fourteen - that age when they know they are smarter than you. They also know that they are shorter than you, so they usually keep their mouths shut.

This boy did not. He brazenly walks over to me behind the counter. He hands me a DVD. He stands there, eying me like a bear mama eying those people between her and her cubs. I say, "did you want to get this?" And he still looks at me, the thick glasses over his eyes barely covering the scorn.

"Is this the movie?" he asks.

"Well, it's A movie," I say.

"But is is THE movie?"

"THE movie what? What movie are you looking for?"

"Is is The Golden Compass?"

"No, that's just a documentary about the book, and about the author Philip Pullman."

"What book?"

"The book that the movie was based on."

"I want the movie. There's no book."

"There is too a book - it's over here."

"No, that's based on the movie." He changes subject: "when does the movie come out on DVD?"

"Well," I reply, "that's hard to say. It's still in theatres, so they haven't told us when the DVD is due out."

"That's NOT TRUE!"

I am taken about at his loud voice. "Um...yes, it is."

"No, I saw on TV that they had released it on DVD."

"Well, what date did the 'TV' tell you?"

He shuffled, still scornful. "I don't remember."

"Ah." I look at him. He looks at me. I tilt my head, as if to say "tsk, tsk."

He opens his mouth again: "Do you know what movie it is where an alien comes back in time and takes over a person's body?"

I stop and think. "Are you thinking of Invasion of the Body Snatchers?"

"NO! This is part of a series of movies. An ALIEN, from the FUTURE." He speaks as though I'm either deaf, or foreign.

"Do you have any more information?"

"He smokes."

Ah! Of course! The smoking alien/human movie! Well, I am perplexed, so I start thinking:

"Ah!" I think I've got it. "Is it Terminator?"

"NO! God. It. Is. Not. TERMINATOR! He was a ROBOT in that. WHY WOULD A ROBOT SMOKE?" He laughs hysterically.

"But...but he..." Ok, I'm not getting into this argument with a boy whose voice is breaking. So I think...

"Is it The Matrix?"

"Oh. My. GOD! What do you know movies? It's a really old movie. Like, 1980 or something."

I'm about ready to kick this kid in the face. But instead I think, well, we've all been trying hard to think of things in the past, maybe he just needs help.

So I say, "just to clarify. There is an alien who goes back in time, inhabits a human, and smokes."

"No." He sighs. "The alien doesn't smoke. Why would an alien smoke? That would just be stupid." He straightens his glasses. "The alien has a person with him. An old man. He has an old man with him."

"So the alien has an old man who smokes with him?"

"Yes."

I am at a loss, so I do the next best thing:

"Maybe we can browse through the science-fiction section, and see if we can find it."

The kid turns to me, a look of pure disgust on his face. "What," he asks, "is 'science-fiction'?"

I sigh and turn around. The day had just begun.

Christmas Is a Time for Loving

2007-12-03T16:40:00.000-05:00

Hello.

I love the Christmas Season. People are always in such good moods. Let me give you a few examples for my most recent day at Booth and Noble. Happy Holidays!

1) We've just opened the store, so that means all those crazy people who line up outside in the snow and cold are let into the store. In a sane world, those people would be barred from entering; in Booth and Noble land, however, they are welcomed with open arms.

I'm standing at the information kiosk at the center of the store and I hear a loud voice yell from the front door:

"PIRATE MONOPOLY!"

I thought we were under attack.

Under attack from venture capitalist pirates.

But the voice kept coming closer.

"PIRATE MONOPOLY!"

Finally I looked up from behind the desk, where I had been cowering with a single cutlass and checkbook to protect me. A large woman waddled towards me with opened arms.

"I Need PIRATE MONOPOLY!"

I found it for her and put it in her hands. Without a second's thought, she said, "Can I leave it here?" and dropped it on the desk in front of me.

She never came back to get it.

2. Later that day, an creaky old woman came up to me.

"Do you have A History of the Christmas Ornament from 1920 to 1930, third edition, by Richard St. Germaine?"

I looked it up on the computer, and for once, here was a customer who had the title of the book right. Unfortunately, we didn't have it in the store.

"Sorry Ma'am," I said, a pinched smile on my face, but we don't have any in the store."

"That is impossible." She looked at me like I had just told her that I dropped a cabinet on her cat...twice. She waited.

"Well, Ma'am, we can go check on the shelf, but it would be a fruitless effort. The computer says we don't have any." I gesture at the monitor in front of me.

"Let's do that then," she says, talking slowly to me as if I were one of her nasty, horrible children.

We walk over to the shelf, and lo and behold it is not there. I turn to her to explain that it wasn't there and she preempts me by saying:

"My nephew called the Barnes and Noble in Portland, Oregon and THEY have it. Why don't you?"

Sometimes, I just want to drop a book on someone's head.

"Ma'am," I carefully explain, talking slowly as if she were one of her nasty, horrible children, we are different stores. We have different books in each Booth and Noble."

Needless to say, she turned with a huff and left.

3.
I return to the information kiosk, about ready to punch a small girl in the face. And what to my wondering eyes should appear, but another obese woman.

"Where are your teen books?" she snarfs at me.

"Actually, they're right behind you," I say, gesturing to the large shelf labeled "Teen." She walks over there and stops.

"Are these the teen books?"

"Yes, they are."

She browses for awhile in the "B's"

Then turns to me.

"How much is this?" She holds up a paperback book. I walk over to her, turn the book over in her hand, and point to the price pictured on the cover. "It's 7.95."

She thinks for a moment. I can tell, because I can smell burning.

"What about this one?" she says, and HANDS ME A DIFFERENT COPY OF THE SAME BOOK.

"That would be the same price, ma'am."

"Oh." She stops and moves over to the "H" shelf.

"Are these also teen books?" she asks.

"Yes," I respond through gritted teeth.

"How do you know?"

"Because there is a large sign right there that says 'teen'."

"Oh." She goes back to browsing.

Meanwhile, I head to the breakroom for a drink.

4.
(Side note)
Booth and Noble central insists that we play Christmas music over our loudspeakers. As someone with a rather finally tuned sense of "taste," I am unhappy with this, but put up with it because, as a business, it is their right to play whatever music they wish.

However, as a rule, shouldn't Booth and Noble include some Hanukkah music? Some Kwanzaa music? What about non-religious music? If I have to hear about the baby Jesus saving the world one more time, I will not be pleased.

Also, one of the CDs they make us play is the new Josh "I can get as much nonagenarian ass as I want" Groban CD, which includes a voice that makes me want to drink wine until I puke. This comment is simply about how much I dislike that CD.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Made in China?

2007-11-13T18:20:00.001-05:00

Hello.

It's not often that I find myself at a loss for words, but just such an experience happened today at Booth and Noble.

See, we have this new book that just came out: YOU! You! has friends: both
YOU!, the first title in the thrill-a-minute series and
You! , which is like the Empire Strikes Back of the trilogy.

Well, a woman comes up to me and asks me for the "staying young" version of the book. Now, I'm not a cruel person, but I doubt that this book is that much of a miracle worker. When she said it, I wasn't so much thinking this as I was seeing this. There's only so much a book can do you for you, lady.

Anyway, as I handed her the book, she stopped me.

"What are these?" she asked, pointing to the two other books in the series, which we have helpfully stacked next to the bestseller.

"Those are the other YOU! books, I said.

"Hmm..." She actually audibly said "hmmm" here, too, which was unusual. She went on: "Which do you think I need?"

Now, I may not know what to say in many situation, but I usually come up with something. But what do you say to an old, chubby, close-enough-to-death-to-lick-it woman?

Thankfully, at that moment the phone rang and I was saved from making what could have been the last decision of my life.

Later in the day I was working in the children's department when an older couple came up to me:

"Excuse me, sir, do you work here?"

As any reader of this blog will note, this is probably the most asinine question we get at Booth and Noble. What you really mean to say is, "Can you help me," but people don't want to ask that, so they ask something else.

Anyway, I say I do work there and ask if I can help in any way. She says, with an exasperated voice, "do you HAVE any books not made in China?"

Again, I stop. I didn't know our books were made in China. I immediately open one and - yes it is! In fact, most of our books are actually made in China. How fascinating!

She, however, was not fascinated.

"I refuse to buy or use anything that was made in China," she says to me, with a contemptuous upturned nose.

"That must make shopping difficult," I say, thinking in my head that if she went ten minutes without using a product made in China I would be surprised.

She turns around. "I won't get anything made in China," she repeats. "And my grandson loves Winnie the Pooh. Do you have any non-Chinese Pooh here?"

I'm sorry, but let me repeat that for you.

"Do. You. Have. Any. Non-Chinese. Pooh. Here."

No ma'am, all our Pooh is American made. And proud of it!

When were you born?

2007-10-29T20:34:00.001-04:00

Hello.

I want to discuss with you my recent stint working in the children's department at Booth and Noble.

I don't work in Kids much. Maybe it's the constant smell of fetid old diapers. Maybe it's the general noise level that approaches the sounds of fifteen cats being spanked.

Or maybe it's the fact that I am generally repulsive to children.

Whatever the reason, I have not been in Kids much. That changed today when I made my way into the department to being my first shift in a long time.

I decided to take with me a stack of books that needed to be reshelved. Balancing those books and my PDT, and my phone, and my cup of coffee, was quite a lot to manage.

I was greeted by a woman who asked me if I worked there.

I stared at her, briefly considering my options. I could immediately run for the door, after throwing the stack of books at her face and leave, knowing that this, the beginning of the day, was probably the highlight.

Or, I could summon all the courage I could muster to look her in the face and say, "why yes, I do work here! How did you ever guess?"

She said, "I'm looking for the books that come before The Magic Tree House.

"Ma'am," I say, "The Magic Tree House books are themselves a series. There's no "prequel" like The Hobbit or Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

She looks at me like I just took off my pants and slapped her with a piece of cheesecake.

"I am a Librarian, Sir. I know that there is no "Prequel" to the books."

"Umm...Ok," I reply. "Then what are you looking for?"

"I am looking for a book that is EASIER than this one. For my grandson. He's going into second grade."

First of all, lady, it's almost November. Either he's in second grade or he's not. Or he's homeschooled. In any case, he should be reading more than Magic Treehouse books. Second of all, I don't know your grandson, nor does it appear that I want to. So pick your own books.

What I say is: "Well, ma'am, if you want to browse maybe something will come to you."

Later in the day, the Birthday Guy comes into the department. The Birthday Guy has some sort of savant ability - he will remember your birthday if you tell it to him. For example, if Birthday Guy comes up to "Sandy" and says, "What's your name," and she says "Sandy" and he asks "When's your birthday?" and she says "Feb 23," he will remember that and tell it to her every time he comes into the store.

Not the most amazing of superpowers, but interesting.

Anyway, he is also a creepy pedophile looking guy. So, of course, I'm keeping an eye on him in the Kids Department.

He wanders over to two women who have been sitting and chatting for a couple of hours together.

Let me repeat: there are two women, NOT WATCHING THEIR CHILDREN (who are incidentally making a mess of the Kids department, and I think one of them poo'ed his pants because it TOTALLY smelled like poo back there for HOURS afterwards), are Chatting IN THE KIDS DEPARTMENT on the tiny benches and table, which is kind of like a grown man trying to use a child-sized urinal.

Anyway, this Birthday Guy comes up to the two women and ask them what their names are and when their birthdays are. They are, of course, rather shocked by this. As a pickup it's just a bit creepy. As a "I want to steal your children," it's also just a bit creepy.

They rebuff him and he leaves. He walks over to another woman and asks the same questions. She says, "I don't want to tell you." He then responds with "If you tell me I will remember them for twenty years."

Now, I have to admit, he has never come up to me. Or, to think about it, to anyone like me.

Yes, he only talks to women. Which leads me to suspect that it's not a savant skill, but an amazing attempt to pick up someone. And although it hasn't worked so far...when it does...

That woman will get a birthday treat like none other.

I Want My Movie!

2007-10-14T09:08:00.000-04:00

Hello.

Many apologies for the near-month absence of a new blog post from the Internet , but I am ashamed to report that not much of interest has happened at Booth and Noble. The truth of the matter is, it's not people have been getting less annoying, but that they have been coming to the store less frequently than they had before.

I blame it on Ozzie Davis.

But, this is not to say that those that have been making appearances at the local Booth and Noble have not given us Grunts a reason to hold our heads in pain and anguish at the state of the human race.

One such case I call "movie-lady." Movie-lady calls up Booth and Noble and speaks with the person working at the information desk, one of whose responsibilities is the answering of phone:

"Thanks for calling Booth and Noble, how can I help you?"

"Where's my movie?"

A pause follows.

"Excuse me?"

"I want my movie! Where is it?"

Information Desk Working immediately felt that this was a situation that required the expert advice and opinion of one Grunt in particular.

Me.

She forwards the call to me, working in the Music and DVD department, and I immediately pick it.

"Thanks for calling movies and music. Can I help you?"

"Where's my movie?"

I immediately decide to go into Computer-Help-Desk-Help mode. "I would be happy to help you with that query this morning. I just need to get some information from you. What's your phone number?"

She gives it to me and I type it into the computer.

Her order comes up. The computer tells me that the movie has shipped from the warehouse and will be in the store in the next few days.

"Ma'am, I see that the movie has shipped from my warehouse and should get to me in the next few days. I'd be happy to call you as soon as it got here."

"What name is it under?" she asks, violently and with an exaggerated sense of importance.

I check. "Vic Harris," I respond.

"My name is Em Harris!" she snaps back.

"Well, as long as you give us your name when you get here, we'll give you your movie."

"What happens," she asks, "if Vic Harris comes in and wants to pick up the movie?"

"Do you know a Vic Harris?" I ask her.

"No."

I stop and think about this. "Ma'am, I'm pretty sure that this mythical Vic Harris won't come in and arbitrarily ask at the counter if we are holding Leprechaun 2. Besides, he probably doesn't even like horror movies."

She responds: "You know, I asked that someone change my name on this order, and they never did!"

I respond: "Actually, it's impossible to change an order once it's been placed, but if you order again, we can certainly use Em Harris instead of Vic."

"Good," she spits venomously back. "I don't want to be known as Vic Harris. Do I sound Hispanic to you?"

I stop and think. Is there anything I can say to this woman to ease her pain? To make her feel better about her sad life that for three full days she's been sitting at home wondering when Leprechaun 2 would come? To complete her one and true life goal?

I respond: "Oh, apologies. Usted película no está aquí, pero el Duende 2 son la mejor película hecha acerca de Duendes malos.

Mis amigos en Booth y Noble

2007-09-19T22:16:00.000-04:00

Hello.

You want to know something that occurs many times in Booth and Noble?

Something that is atrocious?

Something that epitomizes all that is wrong with our country?

It's old men.

Yes, it's true. See, what happens is that old men will be waiting for their wives to finish shopping, and they will come to me and say things that just aren't acceptable in today's culture.

For example, the other day I'm at work and a woman is searching the "pop standards" for the latest Micheal Buble release.

The husband comes into the music department.

"Can I help you, sir?" I ask, demurely.

"Yes, I'm looking for my ugly wife. I keep the pretty one at home so no one gets her."

WHAT?

Even if this were a funny joke, it is still wildly inappropriate to say. But since it's not funny, it's just stupid.

He follows this up, after his wife laughs at his "humor," with a:

"I can bring her here, but I can never lose her. " He leans in close to me: "They can always find ya!"

Don't insinuate me with your verging-on-felony humor! I wanted to turn to the woman and say, "lady, I know you're old and smelly, but you can still do better than that."

So they left and I went back to my desk to call some customers. The special orders had come in, and it was my job to make sure that the customers were informed that their copies of "The Secret" and "<Ski School" came in.

I call a number and get an answering machine. This is not uncommon - it's the middle of the day in a work week, and I'm sure that they had better things to do than wait for my call.

But for some reason, this person didn't seem to realize that everyone has answering machines now. They left incredibly detailed instructions as to how to leave a message:

"Hi. You've reached the phone number for the Michaelson's. We are not home right now, but you have reached our machine. It will record any message you leave and play it back for us. Please leave us a name and a phone number. Also, if you could leave a brief message that tells us what you were calling about, that would help us place your call. When I am done talking, there will be a beeping noise. You should leave that information -- your name, your number, and your message -- after you hear that beep."

And then, without missing a beat:

"And, just to be clear, there is NO ONE at this number who should be receiving ANY calls in SPANISH." BEEEEEEP.

I cannot tell you how tempted I was to leave a message: "Hola! Es Booth y Noble! Sus videoes son aqui!"

But I was too busy giggling to do anything.

Helping the Hoi

2007-09-12T13:13:00.000-04:00

Hello.

It comes as a bit of a shock to me, but it seems that there is a definite loss of awareness of irony in our culture. This is despite the cynical and rather argumentative claims of postmodernists and other cultural critics who see the world as degenerating into a formless, amorphous blob of subjective experience and loss of feeling. As any self-righteous cultural critic would state, the ennui and general unease felt in contemporary culture comes from, among other places, a sense of listlessness among the living and a general malaise in the everyday experience of people.

What this boils down to, at least for those consumers who enter Booth and Noble and attempt to make sense of the endless monotony of their lives, is that either a) they do not realize what asses they are being, or b) they realize and they just don't care.

My vote is for the first option.

As a case in point, the other day at Booth and Noble, I noticed a preponderance of Ironic Shopping. As you may know, when someone works in a retail book shop they must automatically be gifted with the inane trivialities of the minutiae of your life. In other words, all of us Grunts must be extremely well-versed in any knowledge that the customer requires. Am I an expert in coin collecting? Of course! Do I know everything there is to know about business/commercial real estates! I'm completely licensed, of course! Do I know what life is like for the Telugu culture? Why, I'm part of that culture, sir!

What do I mean by Ironic Shopping? What I mean is, for the first two hours that Booth and Noble was open, every single customer that approached me - male, female, tall, short, ignorant, butt-ignorant - asked me where the Self-Help section is.

Is this not Defeating the Very Purpose of the Self-Help Section?

What makes it worse is that these people all had specific titles. In order, these were the titles they were looking for (this is not a joke):

Women Who Think Too Much

Think and Grow Rich

365 Steps to Self-Confidence: A Program for Personal Transformation

What is the key connection here?

Yes, it is confidence and thinking: the irony of which is that neither was attempted in searching for the book. Even a cursory glance around Booth and Noble will reveal the Self-Help section.

Of course, the irony here is not just that some people decide to not think and grow rich (or, as it is, not-think and grow Booth and Noble rich), but that even when they don't think, they are faced with the incredibly difficult task of becoming capable of handling their own life. To this end, a gentleman comes up to me at the desk and asks for a copy of "an introduction to economics." I lead him to the economics section and give him a book that would work for him. He responds with a disgusted snort and a derisive scorn:
"I'm not looking for a book ANY one can read. I want a TEXT book."

I tell him we don't sell textbooks, but I can order something for him. He declines and leaves.

Ten minutes later I'm called to the front of the store to help ring out the customers. I work the registers for a few minutes and then who should be next in line but economics gentleman. And what should he be buying but:
the book .

I was super polite to him, but I don't think he understood.

Of course, nothing beats man who called the store at the beginning of the day.

"Hello, Booth and Noble," I said into the phone.
"Do you know anything about stamps?" He asks with neither a "hello" or a "how ya doin'?"
I respond: "I do not, but we have books about stamps if you want to come in and browse."
"Well," he says, "do you know what this might be worth?" And he proceeds to read off a stamp to me.
"Sir, I don't know anything about stamps."
"But this has got to be worth something, right?" And here are the facts from the stamp he elucidated:

"So I've got this stamp from 1707. It's got a picture of John Adams on it, you know John Adams?"
"Not personally," I admit, "But I have heard of him."
"Ok, well, it's John Adams and it says '2 cents, United States' on it. That's gotta be worth something, right?"
I stop and think. Something here doesn't add up.
"Sir," I say, after realizing the problem. "Perhaps you'd like to take this up with your nearest Philatelist.

Of course, who am I to understand the workings of the consumer mind. I'm just a Grunt.

A Gross of Gross at Booth and Noble

2007-09-02T21:36:00.000-04:00

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.

The Return of the Tooth!

2007-08-29T11:17:00.001-04:00

Hello.

So I look at my blog and I see that it has been exactly one month since my last post. Some of you may be wondering what has been clogging up my output. I shall attempt to explain, in the simplest way I know how.

I was kidnapped by happy-go-lucky pirate children.

For three weeks I was forced into slave labor upon their schooner. It was actually not an entirely unpleasant experience, as they mostly just laughed in foreign tongues and danced around a great big vat of pudding.

But, after those three weeks I was deposited back on dry land with one lady's sandal and a small pony named Fred. I managed to make my way back to Booth and Noble, having only Fred for sustenance, and upon my arrival was immediately put back to work in the music department.

Yesterday, for example, was a typical day in the music department of Booth and Noble. Hours went by with nary a customer in sight, until The Man with One Tooth walked in.

Yes, one tooth.

He also has mutton chops and a hat.

For some reason, this gentleman focuses on me and decides that, in the world of lonely men, he is going to befriend me. Now, I had had some of this "befriending" when I was involved in the world of pirates, but at Booth and Noble, that would just be inappropriate, as well as smelly. But he wouldn't stop talking to me. For an hour this man talked to me.

Part of his diatribe was an inquiry about a film: Strategic Air Command. He wanted to know if we had it on DVD.

We did not.

In fact, according to our computers, it was not available in DVD. Period.

What was fascinating, though, was how a little bit of knowledge can ruin a perfectly good query. For, following this up, this Toothful gentleman decided to ask whether the movie was available in ANY FORMAT. And not all at once. No, he would wait until I had picked up my scanner and moved to a different part of the department, and then he would come back over to the desk, forcing me to come back to the desk, and ask:

"Is it on DVD?"

"No, it's only on VHS."

Then he would say, "Ok, I'll let you get back to work now" and walk away. I would once again leave the desk and go to a different section, and thirty seconds later he would turn around and come back to the desk, forcing me to walk back to the desk:

"Is it on HD-DVD?"

"No, it's only on VHS."

"Ok, I'll let you get back to work now." Thirty seconds later.

"Is it on Blu-Ray DVD."

"Sir, if it's not on DVD, it's not on Blu-Ray DVD."

"What about Beta-Max?"

"What? Do you even have a Beta-Max player?"

"Yes I do, right next to my Gramophone and Daguerreotype"

Anyway, this goes on for awhile until She walks in.

She must be eighty five years old. He sees her and cupid strikes him down.

See has, you see, a hole in her cheek. (Since it is difficult to find a picture of a hole in someone's cheek, I simply linked here to a funny picture that came up when I typed in "cheek"). This hole is about the size...get this...of a tooth! It's not just that they were made for each other, it's that they were physically, and sexually, compatible. He can cheek hump her with his tooth!

Anyway, they get to talking, which means he gets out of my hair. She's carrying a computer book and I overhear this interesting tidbit from her:

"I didn't know you had to know what kind of computer you have in order to get a book about a computer!"

And his reply: "Yes, that's how they getcha!"

As their conversation gets going, I start to work near them. Since we've had a rash of thieveries recently, I thought it best to keep an eye on them (two eyes, actually: one on the tooth and the other on the hole).

However, being so close, I can't help but overhear:

Hole: [Looking at the Cary Grant Collection] "Is Cary Grant the Gay one?"
Tooth: "No, no, you're thinking of the other one."
Hole: "Who am I thinking of?"
Tooth: "Hudson...Rock Hudson."
Hole: "Oh yes, I like him. I thought you were going to say Perry Mason."
Tooth: "No, Perry Mason isn't gay."
Hole: "Oh, I'm SO glad about about that. I just love him."

I didn't really have the heart to tell them that Perry Mason, is, in fact, a fictional character, and that Raymond Burr, the actor that played Perry Mason, was, in fact, a well known homosexual.

But I digress.

As these two lovebirds make their way out of the department, Tooth turns to the lady and asks, "So, is there a husband at home?"

She turns to him, teeth showing through the hole.

"Nope. Dead."

He grins a wide, uni-tooth-ular grin, and says, "I'm so, so sorry to hear that." He tips his hat to her and the walk out together, presumably to cheek hump all night long.

Adventurous Times in Music

2007-07-29T19:15:00.000-04:00

Hello.

And now, a short piece about life as a Grunt at Booth and Noble.

Your players:
- Me (the Grunt)
- Lady (the customer)

The setting:
- The music department at Booth and Noble at 2 pm.

[Lady walks into the department, anger flashing in her eyes and a bag swinging by her side. Glancing left and right, she spies Me and gallops over to the poor Grunt.]

Lady: ExCUSE me? Do you WORK here?

Me: [Me looks down at Me's nametag, at the PDA in his hand, and at the stack of CDs he is holding.] Yes, I do work here.

Lady: I need to complain.

Me: I need to sit down, but I don't see a chair emerging from my ass.

Lady: [Ignoring the obviously fake comment that Me did not actually say, because if Me said that, Me would be fired and on the street] I wish to complain about the CD I purchased.

[Lady holds up a copy of The Travelling Wilburys special deluxe album. Me knows exactly what is going to transpire, and is extremely happy to be in the know for once.]

Lady: The second CD won't play.

Me: [Fake looking concerned. Me wants to play this for all its worth.] Oh no! Tell me what happened.

Lady: I took it home and tried it in my CD player. Nothing. I came back and replaced it. It still wouldn't play! I got a THIRD one. And it wouldn't play either! [Lady is so mad, she slams her fist down on the counter. If there was a clown under there, that clown would be dead.]

Me: Did you think it was your CD player, maybe? [Me smiles inwardly. It's coming...it's coming..]

Lady: Of course! It plays all the other CDs just fine! [Lady gestures to the two other CDs in the 3 CD set.]

Me: May I see the CD?

[Lady hands Me the CD. Me looks it over, touches it, and pets it. He closes his eyes and sighs. His hands rub the CD case briskly, like he was wisking a delicious souffle. Suddenly, he opens his eyes.]

Me: The second CD is a DVD.

[Lady stands, mouth agape, eyes wide in shock.]

Lady: Oh...ah...um...

[Lady turns abruptly and leaves. Me goes back to scanning CDs.]

Fin

Harry Potter and the Book Grunt

2007-07-22T19:19:00.000-04:00

Hello.

It now falls upon me, at this late hour, to detail the end of a dynasty. The world’s most popular fiction series was finished as of the 21st of July, and this particular Grunt had the particular pleasure of selling scores of copies to adoring fans. There were literally hundreds of obsessive and all-knowing fans flocking towards Booth and Noble, each and every one of them so anxious to get their copy that they were willing to eat puppies.

I am, of course, speaking of the release of the new Sylvia Browne book, So You Think You Can Speak to the Dead: Then Will You Please Tell Them to Turn Down the Music?

Ok, obviously I’m not. Obviously it is the much-anticipated release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that brought all of us to Booth and Noble until 3 in the morning. This particular Grunt arrived at 6 in the evening, armed with a small container of fried chicken, for the Grunt Pot Luck, and the cobbled costume of half-giant Hagrid.

My role was two-fold. From 6 pm until 10 pm I watched the music department, and made sure than tomfoolery and willy-nilly-ness did not happen. I had nothing to worry about. From the moment I wandered into the store, passing by the two hundred people lining up outside to get their much-coveted wristband, I was completely enthralled by the complete emptiness of the music department.

Part of the uncomfortable nature of Hagrid’s costume stemmed from the large, fake beard worn around the neck. The other discomfort came from the combination of flannel shirt, corduroy trousers, and bodice wrapped towel around my waist; a combination that made temperatures in my body reach towards the heliosphere.

It can be argued, I am sure, that the pleasure of working the Harry Potter Midnight Madness Party and Booth and Noble is seeing the children smile with eagerness at finally, after ten years, discovering the end of the series. Seeing their wide grins and wide-open eyes should be enough to open up one’s hearts and let the Good in.

And then you meet Fat-Kid-In-Red.

I will be the first to admit that my costume was not the most expensive or realistic as can be. I decided early on in the costuming process (i.e., four o’clock that day) that MY Hagrid would be more of a HOBO Hagrid. I wore an oversize pair of green trousers, a pair of too-small combat boots (no laces), and a brown and red lumberjack shirt. In addition, I stuffed my shirt with a towel, bunched into a working-man’s beer belly. And I wore a large black beard, spirit-gummed to my already hirsute upper lip. In addition, I stapled a stuffed dragon onto my collar and held a small plastic umbrella.

I may not have been J. K.’s Hagrid, but I was most definitely Hagrid -- as if he were born in a barn and lived on the rails.

Anyway.

Fat-Kid-In-Red walks up to me. He cannot be more than 11 years old, but looks as though he were practicing for a role as an short, obese 22 year old. He stops me, as many children do in Booth and Noble that night, to inquire about my costume.

“Who are you supposed to be,” he argumentatively asserts.

I stop. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“Are you Hagrid?”

“Yes, I am Rubeus Hagrid.”

He appraises me: “Your beard’s not long enough, your hair isn’t black enough, your shirt’s too small, your belt isn’t right, and your dragon is upside-down.”

I looked at him. Then he walks past me, to find another costumed person to knock down to size.

The rest of the “music” time was spent cleaning up various things: books fell down, CDs were disorganized, the D&D players on the ground lost a 12-sided die. At 11 I took my break and at 11:30 walked back onto the book floor.

A small crowd had gathered around a teenaged boy wearing a green shirt and a baseball cap. He looked like a string bean.

He was a Spoiler.

Yelling the secrets of the book that had been leaked online a few hours earlier, he made children cry and grown men want to start beating their chests and ripping out their hair. Our managers, unable to take the onslaught of public outcry, rushed forward and brutally thrust him out of the store, onto the pavement.

Spoiler-boy was no more.

Of those that celebrated the ousting, the school-girl sluts were perhaps the most appreciative. I don’t know which House at Hogwarts they belonged to: perhaps a mysterious fifth house that had the talent of sexifying and cock-rubbery as their magical talents. I say this because these young women decided that it would behoove them to dress like cheap hookers at a Britney Spears talent show. Their outfits, short skirts that barely covered their bulging backsides and stockings that ended mid-thigh in a ruffle, would make a French Maid sit up and say, “oui?” The school tie and woolen vest made all the difference, as we Grunts were comforted knowing the three girls would not freeze.

But, then at midnight, the “Magic” started.

I removed the paltry beard and oversized cloak (oh yeah, I had a cloak too) and prepared for the on slot. In back of me: thirty to forty boxes of the book. In front of me: 500 people, eager, tired and developing a very strong odor.

As the bell sounds at 12:01 am, the huddled masses in all their glorious pageantry rush forward. The surge tallies forth. The tills ring and the cash flies.

I have a glance at my register and notice that the credit card machine is broken. This is just wonderful. I pull out my wand and yell “Reparo!” unaware, I believe, that magic does not actually work and that I was left holding a stick in my hand.

However, I am able to type in manually the credit card numbers, and commence doing so. After a few customers pay with their cards, a cash customer walks up.

“One copy of Harry Potter please” she says, handing over the $20.40. I type in the amount and hit the CASH button…and the drawer swings open with a hollow bang. There is no money in my drawer, just the remnants of a discarded receipt and a small dead bug.

The powers-that-be had neglected, in the adrenaline rush of the night, to get me any money.

From that moment on I was unable to accept any cash transactions.

This did not stop people from attempting to buy the book with cash, despite my warnings of dire punishment. One man even lied and said that he had exact change. He did not. I wouldn’t have been able to help him even if he did.

Finally, my last customer: 1am. He walks up to me and hands me his gift card.

“Does this have less than $20.40 on it?” I ask.

“Nope, it’s full.”

“I just want to make sure: I CANNOT give you change.”

“It will be fine.”

I ring him up. The total: $20.40. The gift card: $18.93. My last sale was a bust. The guy moved to the next cashier (Snape, whose register worked like a charm). I turned to face the crowd, Hagrid once again:

“ARGH!” I yelled into the empty book hall. “Wrart! Brarabaragh!”

The others looked at me, but I just turned away and smiled, serene in the knowledge that I had finally vanquished my dementors.

The Musical Experience

2007-07-12T13:39:00.000-04:00

Hello.

So as I'm sitting in the music department of Booth and Noble (well, not sitting exactly, as the Higher-Ups at Booth and Noble think that a "stool" would indicate to the customers a general laziness on the parts of the Grunts. We Grunts feel that the fact we often stand around the counter reading Entertainment Weekly is a much better indication of our laziness, and we would enjoy the chance to gaze longingly from the vantage point of the three-legged wonder spot.)

Anyway. I'm standing there, processing yet another check, I cannot help but think about what a colossal waste of natural resources most of these "customers" are. It's not just the general waste of space they take up, but perhaps the phenomenally large amount of food they eat, the unnecessary air they breathe (don't they know there are people suffocating in China today?), or the fantastically angry-looking faces. Because these people write checks, I have to look at their driver's licenses. Because they haven't yet learned that a check card is exactly like a check, but faster, less likely to make a mistake, and less likely to get you spit at, I have to look at their ugly mugs.

And all I can think is "this is the product when lonely, ugly people get drunk to meet people."

* * * * *

A woman comes up to the counter. She looks kind of like a small balloon on short stilts. Her red shirt unfolds like a parachute across her expansive bosom of death. I imagine her children nursing and curling up like the Wicked Witch of the East.

She can barely reach her face over the counter, but she looks at me and says, "I'm looking for a DVD for a child who is rather heavy." And she stops, about faces, and scans the department.

I am unsure what to do. Does she want an exercise DVD, to help the child lose the "heavy"? Or does she want me to find a congratulatory DVD? Or one that portrays obesity in a positive light? (Hairspray doesn't come out for another few weeks). Perhaps she wants a DVD of Israel Kamakowiwo'ole singing "I Want Candy."

Well, she wants the exercise DVD. As I hand it to her I give her my member card speech and she looks at me like I'm trying to sell her second-rate crystal meth. "Why would I want that?" she asks. "My wallet is too heavy as it is."

"Perhaps," I respond, "we can find it an exercise DVD as well."

*****

A fifteen year old boy in a white, backwards baseball cap and an undershirt walks into the music department and comes up to me standing behind the counter.

"Emir," he says. And expectantly waits.

I think he's speaking another language to me. "Emir," I respond, bowing a little.

"Emir." He repeats himself and then folds his arms.

This can't be a greeting, I determine. So I look at him. "Do you want something?"

"Emir."

"Is that a DVD?"

"Emir."

"Is it a CD?"

"EMIR."

I type it in. Nothing of note comes up.

"Can you spell that?"

"Emmure."

OH! I exclaim and type it in. There's one CD and he scans it under our listening music station. The sound that emerges from the headphones sounds like what I imagine the death lament of a Transfomer would be. Or, perhaps, a thousand crying baby seals. Or the sound of one mime begetting another mime.

I'm all for mime-on-mime action.

Anyway, he listens to this music and, at 2:30 pm exactly, leaves the deparment.

"Now I'm totally pumped for my concert!" He exclaims into the air.

"Emir," I respond.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Grunts

2007-07-09T17:38:00.001-04:00

Hello.

It’s getting close to Harry Potter (Book 7) time at Booth and Noble, and things could not be any more hectic. Children are screaming; parents are fuming; Grunts are laughing at the funny looking people.

And I am once again astounded by the absurd reality in which we live.

For example, a pregnant woman walks up to the Information Kiosk with a determined look in her eye. And a baby inside her stomach (she was pregnant, but I also think she had eaten a child).

As she walks up, she slams her fist on the counter. “Is this where I order that Harry Potter?”

“Yes,” I say, typing the ISBN number quickly into the computer. “How many copies would you like?”

“Oh,” she laughs heartily, “just the one.” Then she rubs her stomach in a manner vaguely reminiscent of Gordon Ramsey rubbing spice into a hunk of red meat.

I order the book for her, she thanks me, and walks away. Then she stops, and turns, and heads back to the kiosk. “I have another question,” she says, basting her belly.

“Yes,” I sigh like a man on death row.

“I just want to make sure: is this the first edition?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The first edition of Harry Potter. Is the book I ordered a first edition?” The large gold medallions hung around her neck swing back and forth, hypnotizing me.

“You mean, the book that is being released around the world to fanfare and hundreds of thousands of eager adults and children?”

“Yes.”

“The book that the world has literally been waiting ten years for? The one that answers all the question? The book that J. K. Rowling has put in her will in case she dies?”

“Yes.”

“…Then yes, it is a first edition.”

But not everyone is super excited about Harry Potter. I was working in the music department when a woman walks up to me, her children leashed to her like it was the iditarod. A veritable cloud of cigar smoke curled around her sneered lips as she opened her craggy mouth with a creaking slurg.
“Ai’im lookin’ fur France-sis the Takin’ Moole.”

“Excuse me?”

“That Moole moo-vy. I want the France-sis Moole moo-vie.”

“Francis the Talking Mule?”

“Thaits what Ai sayd.”

I quickly look on the computer. “I see a couple of movies, here:” and I name them for her.

She gets a pained look on her face, like she was passing a watermelon. “Ees eet the moole moo-vy?”

I say, “Yes, it’s a Francis the Talking Mule Movie.”

“Ai want the woon with the Moole.”

“Yes, this is the one with the mule.”

“The woon wit the takin’ moole?’

“Yes, the one with the talking mule.”

“Are yu shoore?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“The takin’ moole?”

“YES! DAMN IT YES!”

“Ai want eet.”

“I can order that for you.” And then I ordered it for her. After it was ordered, she dragged her poor children around like deflated balloons.

I shook my head as she left, aware for not the first time that the very fate of human kind hung in the balance.

The next shift at the Information Kiosk found more people attempting to interact with me. The highlight of this interaction may have been the man who loudly informed the store that he would rather have a $40,000 guitar than work in a bookstore. I asked if they were mutually exclusive activities.

Turns out, guitars are different from bookstores. But I guess I didn’t need to tell you that.

Children, and the Experiment of Life at Booth and Noble

2007-07-02T08:43:00.001-04:00

Hello.

Apologies for the length of time between posts. Turns out -- I was on vacation last week! My affairs, however, are now in order and it is time to return to the wasteland that is Booth and Noble.

The past couple of times I've worked as a Grunt I've been surprised by the ineptitude of children. Turns out, they're not very intelligent. Or considerate. Or quiet.

See, it's "summer reading" time at Booth and Noble, which means that parents drag their grade school children and teenagers to the Booth and Noble to get them books -- people that have never cracked a book in their life are now "helping" their progeny find a book that they will never actually read. These illiterate children pick up the book like it's made of seaweed and wrinkle their noses like it smells like seaweed, and then hand the book to their parents to purchase, like seaweed. Perhaps we should ban them from entering the store.

I'm all for children's literacy. I think Harry Potter is really good. (I do, really!). I think it's great that children are reading, and that books have opened up their imagination and kept them inside and away from all the places I go, like bus stops, restaurants, and restrooms.

However, these children do come into Booth and Noble, so I guess I'm not completely free of them. They stand in the middle of the aisle, having not yet been taught by their parents (or any capable authority figure) the proper way to get out of the way.

In fact, this seems to be the problem here. Children themselves are lovely, cute, edible people. But when they aren't taught by adults to behave in an adult world, or when they are coddled to the point of lunacy, or when they are allowed to roam freely around screaming like they're on fire because the parents think that their precious little darling is more important than any other people in the store -- This is when the lovely, cute, edible people become denizens of the dark lord.

Anyway, what's been happening is that these children are running willy-nilly through the store, like they own the place.

The thing is, they do not. Booth and Noble own the place. Booth and Noble's policy is that I can kick kids in the face.

What this means is that I'm completely on edge, all the time, at work. When scores of kids run around because their parents let them act like douche bags, I become agitated. And I cannot give good customer service when I'm agitated.

So a father comes up to me yesterday and asks for some help, I am not as helpful as I could be.

He emerges from the test preparation books and asks, "I'm looking for a book that will help my daughter with Chemistry and Physics."

I ask, in reply, "Is she studying for a test? Do you want a test preparation book?" I thought to myself, perhaps he couldn't find the proper book in the test preparation books.

"No," he flatly says. "I want a book that will help her review concepts."

I decide to press this one step further, just to be sure.

"Many text preparation books have review in them. Are you sure it's not for a test?" I mean, it's July. Who buys a review book for the daughter after they've graduated?

"No, I need a review book." He is adamant.

So I take him to the science section -- all the way across the expanse of Booth and Noble. I hand him a good, solid review book of chemistry concepts, and a good, solid book of physics concepts. He looks at them and then turns to me.

"Will these help her study for the SAT?"

I looked at him like he had just dropped his trousers and shat on the floor.

"No, for that you'd want a TEST PREPARATION book." I lead him back to THE EXACT SAME SECTION as he had JUST LEFT and handed him the EXACT BOOK he had been looking at.

I'm not against children. Or against children reading. Maybe what I'm against are parents interfering with their children reading. Every day in the children's department at Booth and Noble we have parents telling their kids, "no, you don't want to read that." Or, "that book is too old for you." Or, worse yet, "you're not smart enough for that book." It's horrifying, knowing that our future is being told, at age 7, that they're too stupid for a book.

Maybe it's not children that should be banned from Booth and Noble, but parents.

Music Post II: The Return of George

2007-06-17T18:05:00.000-04:00

Hello.

Since it had been a week between my last two posts, I had accumulated sordid stories from across Booth and Noble. What follows is a small sampling of them:

"The Return of George"

Some of you may remember George. George is one of those customers that never seem to leave Booth and Noble. There are about five or six people who decide, for whatever reason, that Booth and Noble, a place of business, would be a fine place to spend their every waking hour. They arrive when the store opens, buy one small coffee (and numerous refills), and stay in the store until it approximately closes. We call these people "regulars," which is about as ironic a name as you can get, because they are anything but regular people. Those we Grunts like get called by their name. The ones we Grunts don't like get referred to by their identifying characteristics: "the professor," "smelly man with headphones," "euro-trash."

For some, however, we can't but help know their name.

For those of you that don't know George (not his real name, unfortunately), or don't know to whom I refer, I will illustrate with a quick recap of a previous post:

"A little while later, George walks in. Perhaps I should describe George for you so that you get an idea of what he looks like.

George is over six foot tall and large. I wouldn't call him obese, but he obviously enjoys a good OCB five or six times a week. He's in his late 40s, early 50s and he always wears a ridiculous trucker's hat. … He wears a bluetooth in his ear at all times, even though I have never seen (or heard -- importantly, you will see) him on the phone. He is permanently in need of a shave.

Also, George also cannot control the volume of his voice.

Some would call this tragic. Others would say, then George should watch what he says. However, neither of these would be appropriate for George. The first time I met him, he asked me (loudly) if I had any DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT SHARKS!

Anyway, yesterday he walks in and he screams (and I mean SCREAM - he's talking FULL VOLUME and can be heard ALL OVER THE STORE) "I'M LOOKING FOR MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR BY ELTON JOHN."

I say, "I think The Beatles did that."

He screams, "I KNOW THE BEATLES DID IT. I WANT THE ELTON JOHN VERSION."

Perhaps I'm unfamiliar with it, so I look it up. But I didn't find it. I tell him so.

George then remarks: "I WILL BROWSE NOW." The guy reminds me of Andre the Giant.

He wanders around Soul for a while until he comes back and screams, "DO YOU HAVE THE PONY SONG?"

"What?"

"THE SONG ABOUT RIDING A PONY?"

"I'm not familiar with it. Do you have a title?"

"NO, BUT I CAN SING IT." And this is where he starts singing, top of his lungs, "RIDE....MY PONY! RIIIIIIIDDDDDDEEE! MY PONY!" And as if I didn't understand this, he then starts dancing.

His dance involves an oddly stilted undulation and a strict up and down movement, as if one was indeed riding a pony. He does, however, offer the occasional "smack" onto the pony's rear end...and then, yes, begins to sing again.

"RIDE...MY PONY! RIIIIIIIDDDDDDEEEE! MY PONY!" SMACK! "RIDING MY PONY!"

Although I’m familiar with the song, I never ever want to hear it again."

I wrote those words, back when this blog was an infant of blogs (a blogette). Since then, George has not come back into Booth and Noble -- at least, not when I was working.

At least, not until the other day.

George lumbers in, on a mission.

"I NEED TO WAIT UNTIL MY CAR IS REPAIRED."

I look at him. "Ok, can I find anything for you?"

"DO YOU HAVE THE HONEYMOONERS, SEASON 3?"

A quick check on the computer reveals that we do not. I tell him so, my voice quivering through the sheer inertia that his voice powers through the air.

"VERY WELL. MY CAR DOES NOT START."

"I'm sorry. Looks like you're..." and that's when it hits me. "...stuck here." I sigh, audibly. "How long until it's repaired?"

"THEY TELL ME AN HOUR." Inwardly, I cheer. Outwardly, I ... well ... cheer.

Later, however, George wanders back into the music department. He examines some DVDs and then his phone -- his bluetooth -- starts to ring off the hook (off the ear?).

"HELLO? WHAT? YES. BOOTH AND NOBLE. DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT SHARKS. NO. NO. NO. FINE." He touches a button on his ear and turns to me. "MY CAR WON'T BE READY FOR ANOTHER TWO HOURS. DO YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT WELCOME BACK KOTTER?"

That's not the most agitating thing about working in the music department, though. What really ends up being the turning point from a good day to a bad (and they all pretty much hinge on one or two customers) are the People that Assume Too Much (the PATM). The PATM assume that a) because I work in music I must know every single song on the radio at the moment and b) that I care what they think about music.

A) A gentleman comes into Booth and Noble with a request: do we have a particular song, by a particular artist? It is a normal enough question -- at least, normal enough for Booth and Noble, where our average customer is less-than-literate.

However, what is amazing is that this gentleman doesn't know 1) the artist or 2) the song title. He does, as he points out however, know how the song goes. And then he proceeds to sing it for me. Not with words, mind you -- that would be too easy. No, he sings it with "tra"s and "la"s and "fa"s, like a beautiful aria from Puccini.

Needless to say, I have no idea what he is singing. A random grouping of notes, sung off-tune by an obese man with a beard, does not a jukebox make.

B) A woman rushes into Booth and Noble's music department with an urgent -- URGENT -- request.

"I must have Nickelback's album," she practically screams at me. I lead her to the "Nickelback" area of the Pop Rock section, helpfully labeled "N" right after "M" and right before "O."

She grabs the album and races me back to the cash register. I saunter, because I don't care and I'm not in a rush.

She impatiently taps on the counter.

"Come on!"

I wind my way back behind the counter and ring up her order. I do not make polite chit-chat because 1) I don't care and 2) she is annoyingly too excited about Nickelback.

She, however, wants to be best friends with me. "Do you love Nickelback?" she asks me. "No," I honestly reply. "Why not?" she demands. "I don't know," I truthfully say. "I really wish I did though." That was a lie. A lie to make her feel better.

She then whips out her phone. "You know how much I love Nickelback?" I shook my head, afraid that she was about to call the lead singer of Nickelback to tell her she was horny for him.

She hit a button.

A song started playing.

A Nickelback song.

"That's how much." And she smiled a sweet smile, as if to say, "I love Nickelback more than anything in the world."

Because nothing says "love" like a ringtone.

Mean People in Music

2007-06-11T17:02:00.000-04:00

Hello.

Dare I apologize for the length of time between my posts recently? Dare I assume that my feeble excuse will suffice to excuse my lack of written record of the goings-on at Booth and Noble? Dare I feel bad about working too many long hours to post?

I dare.

On the plus side, I have been recording, for your edification and entertainment, incidents that have aroused feelings of pity for the entire future of the human race in me. I say this without hyperbole or exaggeration. The entire human race .

The past few days I have been stuck in the music department of Booth and Noble, because they are ashamed of me and want to keep me locked in the attic like a crazy aunt from a book. This has not stopped the hoi polloi from coming to visit, in waves and in masses.

A few days ago, a mumbling man arrived in our department and made a beeline for me, standing behind the counter. If any human being has come closer to looking like The Creature from Where the Wild Things Are, then I would be very surprised. This man might have had horns. His grizzled beard scratched against my eyes like a brillo on a steel sink. Fearing for my sight, I glanced down and couldn't help but be distracted by the tee shirt covering his enormous glut of a gut.

He wanders over to me and mumbles something. It sounds like rocks in a garbage disposal.

"Ghasght fasdb awef, fbts?"

"Excuse me," I reply, "Can you repeat yourself?"

"Ghasght fasdb awef, fbts?"

"I'm sorry, I can't understand you."

I imagine that not having had social contact for approximately his entire life would retard his speech development. So I start asking leading questions.

"Are you looking for something in this department?"

"Bys"

"Are you looking for a movie?"

"Hof"

Ok, this track wasn't work. I tried again.

"Can I help you find something specifically?"

Then I understood something:

"Befhanf jwekf SEASON 5 asdfb."

"Ah! You want Season 5 of a show! What show is it?"

And that's when I got everything:

"Auto Car Season 5 Soundtrack."

"Oh, you want...a soundtrack...for season five...of Auto Car. No problem, I can help you find that." Even though "that" doesn't actually exist.

"HOF! FSFNAE NEAF SEASON 5 SOUNDTRACK! AFNE! HOF!"

"I am stunned. How can the only words this person know be "soundtrack" and "season five?" I continue to press him for information, but get very little. Eventually -- and this is literally ten minutes of arguing back and forth -- do I glean that what he actually wanted was

"The soundtrack to the fifth generation of Grand Theft Auto." Which we don't have. Which I told him, only to have him abruptly turn his bulk around and leave the department.

The next day, a woman who could quite possibly be the meanest woman in the world came to the music department with an adorable little girl. The girl couldn't have been more than ten, and obviously enjoyed reading. She would run out of the music department, search for another book, and run back in to her mother:

"Can I get this one?"

The mother would look at the book, sneer, and say

"Why do you want to read that?" Because we obviously don't want to encourage literacy in our children.

The epitome of the disaster that was this woman was when the daughter came bouncing up to her holding a copy of Number the Stars and she replies, upon seeing it, "You wouldn't even understand what was going on."

Anyway, the two of them browse for about 2 hours, and barely say one word to me. I am not upset. However, the words that she does say are mean and created in me the almost irresistible urge to smack her across the face and say, "shut up and get away from the religious music, you sadistic hypocrite!" Finally, however, she does have a question for me:

"Do you have the religious song about dancing and God?"

I don't quite know what to say, so I simply revert to my standard:

"I don't know, let me look it up for you."

We spend about five minutes searching and low and behold we find something for her. During those five minutes, I can feel her hot breath on my neck, like a dragon toasting a marshmallow made not from horses hooves, but from human hearts.

She gets the CD and brings it back to the counter. And then speaks the immortal words:

"If I hadn't found that song, I'd be in a bad mood."

Because she was in such a good mood before.

Well, dearies, I must depart and actually go to Booth and Noble. Later, I will post about the Return of George, and spelling woes.

Getting Familiar in Music

2007-06-07T12:54:00.000-04:00

Hello.

It's a strange fact of nature that people have varying degrees of closeness when they enter an establishment or a place of business. Any Grunt can tell you that they have experienced the unusual friendliness with various customers. Usually this happens to the women in Booth and Noble. For example, a fellow Grunt of mine has been harassed on more than one occasion by customers who feel that it is their life-long duty to compliment women on their various physical assets.

Occasionally they also like to touch these assets.

Thankfully, I have no such assets, or at least, not any worth touching.

At least, I thought so until yesterday at Booth and Noble.

I was helping a customer out (her: "Do you sell Bottlecaps?" Me: "You mean like, Bottlecaps? Or do you mean a book on Bottlecaps?" Her: "I mean Bottlecaps." Me: "Besides the fact this is a bookstore, you are also in the Music section. Why would we have Bottlecaps?" Her: "I thought you sold anything here." Me: "We do. Everything except Bottlecaps.") when an oldish woman came walking up to me at the counter.

There is perhaps nothing as disturbing as someone who interrupts another customer to ask another inane question.

The woman hobbled over, her knees like two popcorn kernels unfortunately revealed to the world thanks to her short shorts. She interrupts the poor Bottlecap woman to ask,
"Do you sell CDs here?"

I look around the Music department and inward die a little bit. "Yes, ma'am, we do. If you give me one moment I can help you find something."

She waits for exactly half of one moment and then opens her craggy mouth again.

"I'm just looking for Michael Buble."

"Aren't we all just looking for Michael Buble, ma'am. Please let me finish up with this customer first." I turn back to the other woman. "We have no Bottlecaps. Why don't you try this DVD of Casino Royale instead?" Finally, I turn back to the second lady.

"Michael Buble?" I ask. "Follow me." I lead her over to the Buble section, and as we're going, she leans into me and grabs my elbow.

"You certainly know your way around this department." At first I think this is a compliment. Then I realize that this is...something more. I quickly lead her to the Buble section (yes, we have an entire section of Buble at the moment) and extricate myself from the situation.

I literally have to peel my arm out of her clutch.

A few moments later she comes back over to the desk, noticeably not holding a CD. "Do you have Tony Bennett CDs?" she asks. Now, for those of you alphabetically confused, you may not realize that Bennett and Buble are surprisingly close together in the alphabet. It is nigh impossible to see the Michael Buble CDs without seeing the Tony Bennett CDs. This is mighty strange.

I take her back over to the exact same location. As we walk, her hand grabs my elbow again, but then slowly moves up to my triceps.

Now, I am not the most muscular man in the world -- far from it. However, I involuntarily flex a little when she grabs me, not because I'm trying to show off, but because I am so startled, my entire body started. I am not, by the way, proud of this fact.

She gives a little gasp. "Oo."

My eyes widen: "O - O"

I quickly retreat again.

A few moments later she comes back to the counter, this time holding a CD. "I'm ready to check out now," she says, looking me up and down. I take her CD and as I grab it, her fingers reach out and lightly brush the back of my hand.

I gulped and hurried through with the transaction, anxious to get her out of the department and out of my life.

She buys the CD and then starts to head away. I -- a horrible, horrible mistake -- leave the safety of the Music counter and start to continue a job I started before she had arrived. She sees me leave and decides it would be a great time to turn around. She reaches her hand out as I pass her and lays it on my shoulder. Her head turns ever so slightly, her lips pursed. I back away like she had just vomited on my face. Her eyes, opened, meet mine and I think I detect a brief wink. "You really know your way around...this department." Then she wanders out of the Music department.

This incident, thankfully, was not at the end of my shift, otherwise I would have been terrified that she would have broken into my car and been laying there, spread-eagled, waiting for my return.

They say that familiarity breeds contempt.

I would say that contempt is always present. Familiarity just brings it out.

Day of Rest?

2007-06-04T15:46:00.000-04:00

Hello.

Sundays, traditionally in the Judeo-Christian ideological base, exist as Days of Rest. When I was in Sunday School, seven of us children were picked to draw each of the days of creation. My randomly drawn day? Fuckin' Sunday. I drew an old man in a hammock.

See, it is on a Sunday that one is supposed to take it easy, to sleep in and eat French toast and pick daisies and kick toads.

So why do so many people ignore this cultural precept and come to Booth and Noble?

And why do they seem so upset to be in a bookstore?

Bookstores are supposed to be fun places. You go to one because you want to, not because you have to. If you're there because you have to get a present, why don't you just go to a Target, or a Wal-Mart, or a pet store? Why do you feel like you HAVE to come to Booth and Noble to get a gift? And, if it's such a hassle, why don't you just get a gift card, so that you don't have to bother people?

The point is, if you're mildly psychopathic, and you have questions for the Grunts on a Sunday morning, then be very careful what you ask for. For example, a man comes up to me yesterday with this glazed look in his eyes, like he just ate one too many fish fingers and he can kinda taste the breading coming back up in his throat. He coughs a little bit, and looks to his left and his right, as if he was being chased by the pie throwing fiends who got Bill Gates .

His obese jowls wobbled hypnotically when he opened his wet, slippery lips to reveal a mouth that would make a dentist quiver. Half his teeth are missing, and the other half look ready to follow their brothers into dental exile. His massive cheeks, like a cross between Dizzy Gillespie and a inflamed squirrel , part and a slight wind tunnel is created that shoots hot air into my face. He smells like peat moss.

"Do you have books for quarters?" he asks. This is not an unreasonable question. The books of which he speaks are in a less-traversed corner of the store, so I take him there.

"Do you want one with State Quarters, or one with the new Presidential Dollar coins coming out soon?" I ask, also, I feel, not unreasonably.

He looks at me like I just squashed his hamster, or at least served it as an appetizer .

"No." He looks me up and down. "I want one without quarters in it. Empty. I don't want Booth and Noble quarters."

I tilt my head quizzically and nod sympathetically. "Yes, sir. I'll make sure you get an empty case." Then I leave.

Later in the day, a customer yelled for me to come over to her. I was standing at the information desk, trying hard to look like I was busy, and she was on her mobile phone in the cookbooks section.

"Excuse me!" she yells, across the store.

I look around. She's talking to me? Ok, and I walk over.

"Can I help you?"

She's got one of those Nextel phone/walki-talki sucki phones that are really loud and annoying. She yells into it:

"The guy's here. What do you want?"

The phone answers: "::beep beep:: Tell him I want The Abs Diet for Women. ." Yes, if you want to get an Abs Diet book, the best way is to not get off your couch and send someone else for it. That's like working out by watching Soccer on TV, or learning by eating someone else's brain.

The woman in the store turns to me. "Do you have The Abs Diet for Women?"

I say, "If you'll let me get to a computer, I can go check for you." I head BACK to the information kiosk, where the computers are. I hear, from behind me, the woman say into the phone "::beep beep:: He's checking the computer."

I look it up and find it. It's directly behind her. I walk back to her, and pick the book up off the shelf, not a foot and a half from her behind. "Here it is, Ma'am."

She looks at me, at the book, and then at the phone. "::beep beep:: He's got it here."

Phone: "::beep beep:: Great! How much is it?"

I sigh, outwardly and with great gusto.

The woman looks at me. "How much is it?"

I turn the book around and look at the back. "$24.95"

"::beep beep:: It's $24.95."

":: beep beep:: Is it on discount?"

"Is it on discount?"

"Yes, it's 20 percent off. That's what this 20 percent off sticker means."

"::beep beep:: It's 20 percent off. There's a sticker."

"::beep beep:: I'll take it."

"We'll take it."

"I'm relieved," I say, as I walk back to the kiosk.

Moments later, I walk back to the section to see if anything's out of order, and I notice that the woman's cell phone is there. I think to myself, "Wow, that woman really irritated me, I should leave the phone here and make her leave and come back for it."

But I'm not going to turn into one of Booth and Noble's customers. So I head to the cash area, to give her phone back to her. She's standing in line.

"Ma'am, I think you left your phone." I hand it to her.

"Oh." She says. And looks at me. And turns away.

I stand there a moment, slightly aghast. No thank you? Not even an "I'm Sorry?" Or even a "::beep beep:: I'm Sorry?" All I get is an "Oh." ?

Sunday: A day when you rest...after work...with a scotch.

Music though the Ages

2007-05-30T08:25:00.000-04:00

Hello.

You know, I am not a vindictive person. When I'm a working as a Grunt at Booth and Noble, I don't normally have the desire to leave the store and follow the annoying brigade down the street. Occasionally, though -- and admittedly, this is only on the rarest of occasions; the ones that call for immediate action -- I want to follow my music customers out into the world. I am curious to see what happens when they leave our music department. Do they wander aimlessly through life, as they do through my department? Do they go into their car and sit for a few minutes, wondering why it isn't already running? Do they get that same quizzical look in their eye -- the one when they're asking me to look up George Lucas's film Schindler's List, and are just so surprised when I tell them that it doesn't exist -- when they look in the mirror? ("Hey, that looks just like me, and that looks just like my room! But backwards! Where is that strange, magical world? This is astounding! I should go tell the Grunt at Booth and Noble about this!")

I am curious about this, because I have no idea how some of these people function in their daily interactions in real life, outside Booth and Noble. On the one hand, I'm sure they have figured out a way -- much like a pianist with no hands can play with his/her feet, or a blind person uses a dog to help him/her see. They must have the ability to function in the real world, simply because they DO exist, and we DO close the store, so they MUST go somewhere outside of the hours of 9am and 10pm. On the other hand, I can conceive of no way that, using the same formula of interaction that they use with me, they can possibly have any sort of functional interaction outside in the real world.

For example, a customer calls me the other day. He asks what appears to be a pretty common-sense question, especially for someone calling on the phone:
"Do you have Atom Egoyan's film Exotica?"

I think that we do, and as I am out on the music floor anyway (and not behind the cage-like counter), I decide to go check. I walk over to the drama section and say,
"Just to confirm, you wanted Egoyan's Exotica?"
"No," he says, and I stop in my tracks. He continues: "I wanted Egoyan's Exotica."
"Yes," I respond, "Egoyan's Exotica."
"No, listen to me. Egoyan's Exotica. E-G-O-Y-A-N."
"YES, EGOYAN. Exotica."
"Do you have it?"
By this time I was at the drama section. We did have it, but I was getting so annoyed I nearly threw it out the window. "Yes, we have it," I sighed. "Do you want me to hold it for you?"

"No, thank you, I was just checking."

Checking? CHECKING? He is that curious in our stock count that he needs to check every so often. I imagine he calls up all the other stores in the area:
"Hello, Target? I was wondering if you had Green Towels?"
"Just to confirm, do you mean Green Towels?"
"NO, I mean GREEN Towels. G-R-E-E-N."

Sometimes, I'm immensely curious to see if people share the types of information they share with me when they go into other stores. Do you remember Who Wants to be a Millionaire? When they were going to answer a question, a contestant would often explain how they knew the answer. It might be a minute long story. Imagine that, only without the dramatic music of the show or the wackiness of Meredeth Vieira. Oh, and it's deathly dull.

For example, yesterday a woman comes up to me clutching in her hands a CD of Mozart music. She remarks as I scan the CD in that "I love Mozart. He is my favorite." I grunt. She continues:
"I think that Mozart is hot."
I want to ask...I want to ask so badly, but I also know that if I ask I will be stuck talking to this woman forever. So I don't.

Thankfully, I didn't have to ask. She continued:

"I am going to get a tattoo of Mozart next week. It won't match my other two tattoos, but it will still look good."

Still, I continue the transaction: "That will be $15.62."

But she ignores me and instead of paying, decides it would be a good idea to explain to me further about her decision to get a Mozart Tattoo:

"Well, I want to get it, but I will only get it if I get good news..." She pauses, expecting me to respond with the only appropriate response. I do not, and respond with the only possible response:

"That will be $15.62"

She is not fazed. "I mean, in a few days, they might be pulling the plug on my mother. We'll see about the tattoo then."

At this point, I really want her to pay. I want her to take her CD and leave. In fact, I am very insistent upon this. "$15.62," I repeat. What I want to ask, though, is which is the good news in that situation? Does she get the tattoo if her mother is off the machine? Or does she get the tattoo if they don't pull the plug? Is death or recovery the good news?

It are these questions that keep me up at night.

Other customers aren't quite as intriguing. One woman comes up to me carrying five Pop Standards CDs -- you know, the Michael Buble, the Tony Bennett, the Barbra Streisand. She comes up to the counter and says, "I found everything I wanted, except for one thing." Thinking she wants to order it, I open up the computer. "What can I find for you?"

"No," she says, "you have it, but I don't want a used CD."

Now, Booth and Noble doesn't sell used CDs. So I tell her this. She responds, "but the CD is open!"

We've had problems with shoplifting recently, so I am immediately concerned. Rarely, however, are our Pop Standards shoplifted (you don't find many 80 year old people looking for the five finger discount. Mainly they look for the bathroom). I ask her to show me. We walk over to the section and she points out the CD -- the plastic wrap is slightly peeling at the corner.

"You know this is still new, don't you? That the CD is fine, never been played? That this is just the wrapping?"

"Yes, but I don't want a used one. I want my own one."

I have learned by now not to argue, so I just nod and say, "alright." She watches me take the CD back to the counter, remove some scotch tape from the black dispenser at my side, and tape the slight rip. I set the CD aside and scan in her merchandise.

Like I said, what does she do when she leaves? Does she walk into her house, sit on her couch and stare at the blank television, unsure if she should turn it on, because if she does, she will be watching a TV show that (shock!) others have seen?

I wonder these things, and more.

The Eternal Dance of the Optimist

2007-05-25T17:09:00.001-04:00

Hello.

You know, every time I enter Booth and Noble, my heart sings a little song. Sometimes it sings a happy song, like "Heaven is a Place on Earth." Other times, it sings a more dour song, like "Enter Sandman." Yesterday, when I walked into Booth and Noble, my heart sung "Que, Sera, Sera."

See, despite all my misgivings, all my misfortunes, all my mis-steps, I still enjoy working at Booth and Noble. I am ever an optimist, hoping against hope that one day someone will walk in with a surprisingly urbane, decently well-thought out request for a book, DVD or CD that doesn't make my toes curl with shocking horror.

Yesterday was not one of those days.

Part of the problem was that I just kept overhearing some of the most painful conversations imaginable. You can't help but overhear conversations when you work at Booth and Noble: the trouble is, people are just too loud in a bookstore. Because there are chairs and tables, perhaps they think it is their home , so they don't feel like they need to be quiet. Or buy anything. Or flush the toilet.

For example, it's not long ago that I overheard a mother and her child having the following conversation in the children's department:

Mother: Perhaps we should tell Stephen that we're going to get ice cream.
Child: But we don't like Stephen!
Mother: I know, but he might want to come.
Child: But we keep our ice cream a secret from Stephen!
Mother: Well, I'm not the one who tells Stephen about the ice cream after we have it.
Child: It's not my fault!
Mother: But you do tell him our secret.
Child: But I like ice cream and I hate Stephen!

I don't know who this Stephen fellow is, but believe me, he is much happier not knowing that this runt and his mother are going to get ice cream. Perhaps Stephen will live out his life happy, living in peaceful ignorance that Mother and Child are two rotten people who deliberately keep ice cream away from other children, hoarding it for their own consumption, not realizing that soon, all too soon, they will die from a stupid ferret in a hat.

But that overheard conversation was the least of my problems. The most? A racist baseball fan.

One thing that disturbs me about baseball fans is that many of them assume that you, as well, are a baseball fan. It's like going to a foreign country and assuming that everyone there speaks English. Sure, it's a pretty good bet that they do, but to assume it is to show your complete lack of manners.

It's the same with baseball.

A man came up to me at the information kiosk and asked for a book. He was an old man, with thinning hair covering a pulpy mound of scalpy flesh. His ears jutted out like the sides of a gothic goblet, but because he was only five feet tall, he resembled one of the rejected dwarves who didn't get to hang out with Snow White (see, there were originally 12 dwarves, but only seven of them passed the test: Happy, Sleepy, Doc, Grumpy, Sneezy, Bashful and Dopey. The fact that Dopey made it through the test tells you something about the other 5. Basically, each of the other five dwarves were just horrible victims of fate. Angry the Dwarf was cursed with a short temper and huge, sweaty feet. Hungry the Dwarf was as round as he was tall, and had no friends because he couldn't fit through the door to leave his dwarf house. Flappy the Dwarf literally had no bones and one day was eaten by a tortoise . Freebasin' the Dwarf grew up on the wrong side of the dwarf train tracks and eventually OD'd. And then there was Hobbley the Dwarf, who had a bald head and nothing else. This is all that was found of him).

Anyway, um, where was I? Oh yeah...so this old dwarfish man with the thinning hair comes up to me as asks,

"Yankees or Sox?"

But what I hear is,

"Yank up your socks."

Now, I was standing behind the Information Kiosk, and there was no way he could see my socks. So I asked him to repeat himself, stunned that this dwarf would tell me how to wear my stockings. He repeats himself and I understand this second time. Because I don't want to admit that I know nothing about baseball, I arbitrarily guess that the answer he wants is "Yankees."

It was not the answer that he wanted. He got this pained look in his face like he was passing a kidney stone the size of a truck.

He starts to yell at me about why he hates the Yankees. Turns out, the reason he hates the Yankees is because they're run by Jews. Yup, gotta love them greedy Baseball Jews! .

But when I asked him about the Boston Red Sox, he replied that the reason he liked them was because they had just hired a "great new Jap pitcher," who can "throw a ball" even though "he has short Jap arms."

That's not even a racist stereotype I know! I know Japanese people are fond of sleeping with arms , but as for having proportionally smaller arms? That's just confusing.

Anyway, I politely extricated myself from the conversation and walked over to another stack of books. He left me alone, but I watched him leave the story. He started singing "Que, Sera, Sera."

Information Day = Overrated

2007-05-21T18:33:00.000-04:00

Hello.

Working as a Grunt at the information desk has its ups and downs. With every customer that comes up with a rude question or a muttered curse, there is a customer that arrives with the type of question that just makes you smile.

Booth and Noble is full of wonderment, juxtaposed with complete bafflement.

Let me give you an example of this dichotomy. We Grunts have very few duties to perform when we are working at the information desk, other than working with customers. One of these few duties is to pick up the piles of books that litter the tables and walkways of the store. As one of my fellow Grunts pointed out, customers feel that it is our job to clean up after them. We are there, after all, to babysit. It is not our job to put new fixtures of the latest Oprah book. Instead, we are on clean-up duty.

So imagine my shock when first thing in the morning I discovered a large pile of books on a table. No one was sitting there -- no one was close by whom I could ask if they were the possessors of this book.

The timing of this discovery matched almost exactly the time when the children's reading hour ended. Every Monday we have a children's reading hour, where a storyteller comes in and reads a book or two, a cartoon character or two arrives, and little children scream and shout for an hour.

So, the children and their mothers exit the children's department at the same time as I clean up a pile of books.

I place the books at the information counter.

Children walk past me, oblivious to the world because they have their fingers up their butts.

I put the books back on the shelves.

The mothers tell the children to stop picking their butts. The children scream.

I arrive back at the information desk, only to see a woman on the other side of the store, where I just removed the books. She looks around: obviously, they were her books. She had decided to leave for a little bit, and did not take the books with her.

I start to feel bad. Perhaps I shouldn't have moved those books. Perhaps I should have left them. Then I hear it:

"WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY FUCKING BOOKS?"

Children stop picking their butts and stare, slack jawed, at the woman. Mothers cover their ears and weep. I don't know the best way to deal with this situation, so I simply walk over to her and say, "I put your books away, and please don't swear in front of the children." I give her the books back.

As the children and their mothers file out of the store later, I hear one of the children yell, "Mom, what's a fucking book?"

This terrible incident was offset by the amusement of the phone call I received a little bit later. One woman called and wanted to order a book. I placed the book in the shopping cart and started to ask the questions that were necessary: name, address, etc.

Then I ask, "do you have an email address?"

She replies, "Yes."

And there is a long pause.

"Do you want it?" she asks. No, no ma'am I don't. I was just curious to see if you were in the 21st century.

Perhaps what was the most rewarding experience of the day came towards the end of my shift. I had been answering the phone an exasperatingly high number of times. It seemed to ring continuously from the minute the store opened to the minute I left.

This call, however, was amazing.

"Thank you for calling Booth and Noble. This is Paul speaking. How can I help you?"

"Hey Paul, this is Jimbo." Why do they insist on telling me their name? Are we buds? Are we friends? Do we go out for drinking buddies ?

"Hey...Jimbo. What can I do for you?"

The voice on the other end of the phone spoke like a man rising from the grave. The gravel in his voice betrayed his age, but this sprightly effervesce of his tone revealed a hidden jauntiness.

"I'm looking for a book on how to win the lottery."

"Wait...you want a book that tells you about the history of the lottery?"

"No, I want a book that details the way that I can win."

I go to the computer and type in the words "win" and "lotto" in the keywords box. Surprisingly a number of books come up, including one in the New Age section.

I look at one book and ask, "is this what you're looking for?"

He responds, "no, no I read that one already. It didn't work."

Needless to say, I ordered him another book and barely hung up without laughing. I didn't quite succeed when a customer ordered a book and claimed his last name was "Buttz."

Advice at Information

2007-05-18T10:08:00.000-04:00

Hello.

Working at the information desk is a double-edge proverb.

On the one hand, you have the freedom to wander the store at random, and appear to work. For example, if I am bored at the information desk, I might wander over to the magazines and straighten them a little bit. Lord knows they need it. It's one of the sad truths of our culture that people, when given the opportunity, will completely mess up a neat and orderly magazine stand. Trust me: there have been tests. They ("scientists") injected monkeys with a drug that gives them the ability to read (it's called Literox). These monkeys are then released into various book stores across the country, and they are dressed in top hats and given canes to disguise them so we Grunts won't know that they are really monkeys and not small hairy gentlemen.

Anyway, these reading monkeys are sent into the magazine departments and are encouraged to pick apart the periodicals. Invariably, these simians rip out the comment cards and the subscription cards. These cards make these reading apes Very Angry ("Great Apes of Wrath").

But, and this is the important part, THE MONKEYS DON'T TAKE THE MAGAZINES OUT OF ORDER! They will always put them back in the same place. This is a trait of the great reading monkey, but not the human (most of whom are probably illiterate anyway).

So what happened during my time at the information desk, you ask? Besides putting away the magazines, I had the pleasure of helping a number of people.

I do want to point out that many customers come into Booth and Noble that are very intelligent. They know what they want, they know (approximately) where that thing is, and they don't have to deal with having me cock an eyebrow and sigh, exasperatedly.

But these are not the customers that come up to the info desk. No, the customers that come up to the information desks are the ones who say "I'm looking for the non-fiction section." I reply, "Every section that isn't labeled 'fiction' is non-fiction. Can you be more specific?"

One of the first customers of the day was a woman who was looking for a romance novel. Now, I have nothing against people who read romances. I think it's perfectly fine. I myself enjoy a "beach read" that is just fun and doesn't really take too many brain cells to figure out. There's nothing wrong with this.

She, however, decides that what she's looking for is too complex for her to deal with on her own. So she comes up to me, who is foolishly stationed right in the center of the information desk.

"Can I help you," I ask, my heart sinking when I see the cat-shaped broach on her cat-themed sweater.

"Yes, I'm looking for a romance novel that I haven't read yet."

I pause.

"That's a good idea," I say. "What have you read before?"

She doesn't answer that question. Instead, she looks at me and answers a different, unasked, question.

"Because they all look different, but aren't."

"Excuse me?" I ask, quite understandably. "I don't know what you mean."

She clarified: "The covers change. They have the same book, but different covers! It makes it so hard to find a new one!"

Now, this does happen. Occasionally, when a book is really popular, or turned into a movie, they will release it with a new cover. But this doesn't happen too often. More often, they will release a book with the same plot as another book, but call it something different and claim it is by the same author. Romance novels do this all the time. She was calling them on it, without even meaning to call them on it. It was a blow for the common reader, albeit without foreknowledge of the blowing.

I had to clear my head from this conversation and so went to the restroom. I walked into the men's room and was immediately greeted by the oppressive stench of the men's room. All men's rooms have it. There's no amount of urinal cakes that can disguise this scent. It is oppressive, but oddly comforting, like it's the only one constant in one's endless stream of dynamic lives.

There's already a man at the one urinal at Booth and Noble, so I decide to use the stall for my urination. I ease myself out and let myself go...but when I look down I notice that a steady stream of liquid is pooling on the floor next to me.

"Oh no!" I think to myself. "What have I done?" But then I notice. It's not me. It's coming from OUTSIDE MY STALL. Outside my stall from the direction of the urinal.

It's too late for me to stop and move to a different stall. The liquid inches closer to my foot. I try to move away from it, but there's only so far for me to go. The liquid on the floor moves ever steadily onward, like the soldiers from The 300 .

Eventually, I am completely perpendicular to the toilet bowl. Instead of facing it straight on, I am facing it at a right angle. Still the liquid comes closer. How long has this man been standing there? I quickly finish, flush, and flee.

Completely unrelaxed, I walk back to the information desk. Standing there is a tall man with thin, wispy gray hair. One of them. One strand of hair is plastered across his spherical, bald head. Like a dying man's face, the rest of his skin lays shrunken against the outline of his skull. His bones protrude through the thin, translucent membrane of his skin. Teeth at odd angles jut out of his mouth and create a specter of death. With a shockingly deep, slow voice, but haltingly, he asks me a question:

"Where...are...the...photography books?" The last two words he spits out like half-chewed tobacco.

I direct him to the proper section and quickly back away. The stench of the unclean is upon him, and I am afraid that, like the homeless demons that haunt the under bridges of the area, I too will be sucked into his whirlpool of dismay.

Later, after he has left, I return to the section to clean up the books. I notice that the only books laid open are ones full of photographs of young children.

My day is largely uneventful at Booth and Noble after this. Uneventful, save for the final customer of the day.

She comes up to me with a note clutched in one chubby paw. I ask her, "is there anything I can help you find today?"

She looks at me like I just vomited at her feet.

"Yes." She snarls. "I'm looking for a book by a man named Wambam."

I start a little. "Wambam? W-a-m-b-a-m?"

"Yes. Wambam."

"Ok," I say, and type it into the computer. Nothing comes up, and I tell her so.

"Nothing is coming up, ma'am."

"Well, you must be typing it in wrong."

"Ma'am," I say, "it's four letters. 'W.' 'A.' 'M.' 'B.' You want to type it in yourself?"

"No, I," she hocks, "trust you," she spits."

"Do you have the title of the book you're looking for?"

She does, and gives it to me. The author's name?

Wambaugh.

She was very close.

And I was very close to pushing my way out the door the minute my shift ended. My advice from the information desk at Booth and Noble?

Run away. Run far, run fast.

Music time!

2007-05-15T19:01:00.000-04:00

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.

Lessons Learned from Info (Desk)

2007-05-13T17:51:00.000-04:00

Hello.

There is a moment in every Grunt's life as a book clerk when he or she raises one eyebrow (or, if he or she cannot raise one eyebrow, he or she raises both; unless he or she has a unibrow, and then he or she raises his or her eyebrow-band) at comments that are made.

It is not something that usually occurs in the first few weeks of work, because one is still getting used to this thing called "Booth and Noble." No question is too idiotic in your first few weeks (unless you get a "Do you have any Charles Dickens?" and you answer 'Yes, we have many, including A Tale of Two Cities' and then the reply comes "No, I meant CHARLES Dickens.").

In fact, I would venture to say that the old axiom "There are no stupid questions" was not invented by a book Grunt.

No, the cocked eyebrow (or brows, or brow-band) comes later, after you've mastered the delicate art of figuring out what the customer wants.

(Minor diatribe here: this is not the same as figuring out what the customer asks for. What the customer wants and what they request are very often not the same thing. For instance, a customer will come in and ask for "Oprah." What they want is the latest "Oprah book club book," which is usually to be found in the bestsellers, or the trash. If they come in and ask for a particular book by a particular author, you can usually be assured that they have either the name of the author or the title of the book wrong. Flags of Our Fathers was not written by Peter Jennings, as one customer recently asked).

The cocked eyebrow/s/band comes after you've discovered that you have reached your full level of customer antics. Customers, it must be said, should never ever ever try to be funny. There are a number of reasons for this:

1) Customers, like most people, are not as funny as they think they are; in much the same way as drunk people are not as good at dancing as they think they are, middle-schoolers are not as old as they think they are, and Creed is not as talented as they think they are.

2) Chances are, we Grunts have heard this joke before. The book doesn't scan the first time past the laser? If you think it's original to claim "if it doesn't scan, it must be free," then you should take a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror and then beat yourself over the head with it.

3) There is no reason why we Grunts will laugh. We barely have the energy or desire to take our plates from the breakroom to the Cafe, and we don't even have to clean them. Laughing just saps us of our energy. No joke is that funny.

4) Even if we do find your joke amusing, we will automatically look at what books you're holding in your hands, and chances are, that will kill the joke for us. You make us laugh and then we see that you have the latest Dan Brown? Then the joke's on us. And that ain't funny at all.

So you see, there should never be reason to make pointless jokes to us humorless Grunts. (Much like there is never any reason to make pointless conversation with us weary Grunts).

I will give you a pertinent example from my day today at the Information Kiosk. It is Mother's Day, and on top of that, it is a beautiful day outside. There was almost no one in the store. It was like a ghost town, filled only with the decaying laughter of a thousand empty hearts. A child ran past the Information Kiosk with her father close behind her:

Father: Do you want to get Harry Potter?
Child: No, Harry Potter is boring.
Father: Oh.
Child: ...and scary.

I didn't want to point out that it's rather contradictory to be boring and scary, unless (as was pointed out by another Grunt), it is algebra class. Besides, it was just a child, and they are notoriously stupid.

Then, another customer comes up to me. She is crinkled, and seems barely able to move her joints. She is like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz before Dorothy can give him the "Oil Can" to lube him up. She licks her dry, cracked lips with a sandpapery rubbing and coughs.

"Can I help you?" I ask, momentarily taken aback by this animalistic visage.

"I am looking for a book about Pysanka. P-Y-S-A-N-K-A. Pysanka."

"Ok, ma'am I'd be happy to help you look for that." I looked in the computer. Nothing came up. "There's nothing with that name in the computer. What is this? Can I look it up by a different name?"

"No, it's just pysanka. P-Y-S-A-N-K-A."

"Yes, I spelled it correctly," I checked. "But there's nothing. What is pysanka?"

"Ukrainian Decorated Easter Eggs."

"Ok...um...I looked that up and nothing popped up either."

"Ukrainian Decorated Easter Eggs. Are you sure? U-K-R-A-N..."

"Yes, I know how to spell Ukrainian, ma'am. Are you interested in a book about decorating them?"

"No."

"In a book about collecting them?"

"No."

"In a book about their history?"

"No."

"Then I'm afraid I don't know what to look for, ma'am."

"But you have so many books here. People can find anything here."

"Obviously not pysanka, ma'am."

"Oh," she said, gearing herself up for The Joke. "But I thought there were books about everything. People collect Dinosaur Crap!"

There was a stunned moment of silence. Even the soft tinkering of someone's cell phone was silenced. I slowly raised one eyebrow, as she turned and walked away, smiling the inner smile of one content.

The emptiness of music

2007-05-10T00:53:00.000-04:00

Hello.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of working at Booth and Noble, in the music department. I must say, Wednesday night is not a particularly busy night at Booth and Noble -- perhaps people are staying at home to catch up on their weekly fix of Lost.

Not everyone, however, decided to stay home last night. I am unsure as to what compels these people to come to the store on a daily basis. Perhaps it is loneliness. Or, perhaps it is an innate desire to torture me. Instead of watching Lost, maybe these people watch 24

I say this because, what greeted me on my way into the music department was something so appalling, so disgusting, so generally vile that I hesitate to even talk about it in a blog.

The walk from the main office to the music department is filled with twists and turns. Around each of these corners a person, or persons, could -- and do -- sit. In one corner, for instance, we Grunts can almost always find some teenage ne'er-do-well flipping through the various pages of the near-pornographic manga magazines (seriously, we have real porno in the magazine section, what are they doing looking at pictures of underage Japanese women?).

Yesterday, I walked through that labyrinth and discovered two people wrapped in the throes of passion. I am not kidding.

Well, when I say "passion," I don't mean "love." These were not "lovers," although there was "lovin'" going on. The two people, a young boy with a trial mustache and a teen girl with an illegal belly ring, were wrapped together like slugs mating . They weren't kissing -- that would imply a sense of love. No, the word I would use to describe their action is more...um..."GROPING." As I watched, the thinly mustached boy cupped both the illegally-ringed girl's breasts and gave them a little squeeze. She, in turn, emitted a short squeak. Startled, I jumped back a little bit and they both looked up at me.

There was a moment exchanged between us. The three pairs of eyes locked onto each other and we couldn't help but decide, right then and there, that we would not ever, ever discuss this. They turned back to the book they were looking at and I continued on to the music department.

One of the most interesting things about Booth and Noble's selection of music is the immense variety of CDs we have. Sure, amazon.com has more CDs, but in terms of physical CDs, Booth and Noble keeps a decent selection. One of the ways we manage to do this is to receive massive quantities of a title the first week or so that it is released, and then immediately return to the vendor all but one of them. In effect, we have a surge and then a recession.

And when we have that many CDs at once, we have to do something with them -- they obviously can't all fit into the main section. Thus, we have "promo" areas: these are probably the areas that you go to first. The walls that highlight a few CDs in a large waste of space: these are the promo areas. We dump scores of CDs there, which rest there for a few weeks until they are ready to be returned.

This changes on a weekly basis.

Yesterday, a gentleman who smelt of talcum powder came into the music department and wanted a CD that had been on one of these promos...four months ago.

He said, "It was by an artist who's first name was George."

I replied, "Do you know his last name?"

"No I don't. But the CD was on one of these walls. And it was white."

"Um...Do you remember what genre of music it was? Rock? Jazz? Rap? New Age?"

"No, I don't remember."

"So, we're looking for George's white CD from four months ago? If I help you look for this, will you help me look for my lunch, which I left back in the sexuality section with a thin mustache?"

Later, the man decided to purchase, instead of the mystery CD, a copy of the sixth season of Murder She Wrote. As he was writing a check, I informed him of Booth and Noble's check policy:

"I will have to see an ID with this check."

Most people, most NORMAL people, then offer their identification, which I then scan and copy down their ID number and expiration date. It's just a method of verification, in so far as if there is an issue with the check actually clearing. When I ask him, however, he cocks his head and asks:

"Can't I just use yours?"

My eyes widen in horror. Is he serious?

"Um, no sir, I believe you have to use your own ID."

"But in the last store I went to, I used the clerk's ID number."

"Well, I don't know what they do at Old Navy, but here we have to use your ID number."

He finally handed over his ID; but it took my heart several minutes to stop pounding in my chest.

After my break, a total of about four people came into the music department. One person, though, set off the alarm system as he walked through it. I thought he must have been carrying a tagged book, but there were no books clutched in his hands. He was sweating, extremely overweight, and obviously in need of a shave - or at least a bath. When I looked at him quizzically about the alarm going off, he gave the loudest, most audible sigh I have heard in my life -- I think Old Navy heard it, in between giving out ID numbers -- and exclaimed in gruff tones, "IT'S MY PACEMAKER, OK? ARE YOU HAPPY?"

I almost replied with my standard, "Oh, it's ok. We're more concerned with people leaving rather than coming in," but then realized it just wouldn't be appropriate. I honestly had no idea what to say. Do you say, "seeing you sets off my heart alarm?" 'Cause that's what I was thinking...

Towards the end of the evening, a diminutive woman walked into the store and came directly to the counter. I wasn't there, however, and didn't notice for a few seconds. When I heard her loud "A-HEM!" I darted over.

"Yes, can I help you find something, ma'am?"

"My granddaughter is going to be the ballet later. I would like to find a DVD of a ballerina. I have the title right here: Follows Her Dreams."

Now, I have never heard of Follows Her Dreams, so I went to the computer to search. What I found was a DVD for a relatively famous children's cartoon character. We did not have any DVDs of Angelina Ballerina, the dancing mouse, in the store, but we do have a ton of books in the children's department.

"Ma'am," I said, "we don't have any of the DVDs in the store, but we do have a ton of the Angelina Ballerina books in the children's department, if you would be interested."

"Oh," she replied, matter-of-factly, "I don't buy my granddaughter books." And with no further explanation, she turned around and left the department.

Yes, you come to a book store to buy a non-book gift for a new ballerina. I can totally see the thought process on that one. It's like going to the grocery store to buy a pet.

Anyway, maybe it's the slow days that bring out the worst in customers. It certainly felt that way during the slow emptiness of the music department.

Info and Receiving: a double whammy!

2007-05-07T17:49:00.000-04:00

Hello.

I must admit I have been slow to blog these past few days. It is not because I have not been at work (far from it -- I have, indeed, spent a good deal of time at work!), but because, to be honest, not much interesting has happened.

On Sunday I worked my usual opening shift. Booth and Noble doesn't open until 10am, but the opener gets to come in at 8 and do chores. This means that for two full hours, there are no customers. Stretch it out, and you could spend the whole time just putting the newspapers away.

Then, at 10...no one comes in. It's 10 o'clock on a Sunday. Would you be in a bookstore?

Then, at 11, the opening Grunt gets a break. It's only the last two hours, the toiling hours of 12-2, during which the Grunt really sees any sort of customer. And if the day is as nice as Sunday was, then, well, then there just aren't very many people.

It is sad that the only interesting story from Sunday was the woman.

She was old, say about 245 years. She hobbled over to me, clutching a hardcover book in her scrawny hands. With the eyes of an eagle, she had spotted me from across the store, but it took upwards of twenty-five minutes for her to approach me.

She came up close to me. I could smell death leaking from her. She turned her crooked nose towards me an inhaled. "Ahh..." she let out. "I like your soap."

I replied, "thanks. Is there anything I can help you with?"

She twisted her head, cocking the neck so loudly people nearby ducked, expecting a Wild West-style shootout. "Is this," she held out the hardcover book, "a new book?"

I looked at the cover. There was only one place she could have found that book: Hardcover New Releases. She had picked up a book from a stack of identical books that all were sitting on a shelf labeled "New Releases." And she asked me if it was new.

"Yes, ma'am, I do believe it is," I replied, watching her lick her crunchy lips.

"Excellent. I do so enjoy," she smiled like a dog panting, "Harlan Coben."

But alas, that was the only story from Sunday. Today was even worse -- I was in receiving working on a project. I interacted with no customers!

See, the management, quite rightly, decided that we needed to rearrange the store. So, two weeks ago, we did. A group of people stayed up very late and shifted thousands of books. Now, where there once was Science, there is now Cooking. Where once there was Shakespeare, is now Mythology. Where once there was Health, is now...well, Health stayed pretty much the same.

But, if you will recall from an earlier post, Welcome! , there are a bunch of carts in the back receiving room. These were now out of order. So I, in order to get some more hours, volunteered to come in and fix them.

And they are now fixed.

Of note, however, was one time when I left receiving to grab my Diet Coke from the breakroom, and I passed a small boy wearing the exact same outfit as me. Down to the socks. Besides the obvious height difference (he is about ten and about 4 foot 6, I am older and taller and therefore more virile), the only difference was that he wore one of those white rapper's caps.

He obviously was quite a bad ass.

A bad ass, I might add, who shops at Old Navy and Target.

Cafe-hey ho!

2007-05-05T18:03:00.000-04:00

Hello.

I should preface this blog with a short description of the glorious weather we are having. Without a doubt, this is the most fantastic day that has ever existed on Earth or in heaven since time began. Imagine, if you will, the best meal that you have ever eaten. It has tasted better than anything before, and you will never taste a meal as good again. It is a meal that will last in your mind, every detail recorded and remembered, until the day you expire. This day was that meal.

For me, it was a delicious baked potato.

But I digress. The day was beautiful indeed -- the sun was shining, the temperature a delicious 68 degrees. Not a cloud in the sky.

Of course Booth and Noble was full of customers.

Thankfully, I was working in the cafe, and for whatever reason, it was not very busy. I am not doubting the fact that people wanted their iced caramel coffee frappaccino delicious venti-sized vanilla bean java beverage, but simply saying that they might have gone elsewhere.

In the stretches of time in which no customers appeared, I kept busy: I rearranged the cafe stockroom (now, there is FRESH frappaccino mix, and not the old stuff), I cleaned the fridge (did you know that in the back of the Booth and Noble fridge there is a family of tiny people named The Edwards?) I also used three straws and two coffee lids to construct a googly-eyed pair of glasses, which I then wore, and promptly walked into a pole because I forgot to cut holes in them for me to see out of.

It was not all fun, games, and cleaning products, however. No, we had our share of fun customers as well.

One of the first customers I had today was approximately 245 years old. He had beady eyes, like a character in a comic strip. He wore the standard "Old Man" uniform: sweater vest (striped), shirt (solid), pants (soiled). He strode up to the counter like a man half his age (122.5). He slammed his dollar bill on the counter and announced, quickly:

"I need a cup of coffee."

"Ok," I replied. "What size can I get for you?"

"Make it a..."

We eyed each other. What would he order? What size cup should I get? The ironically named 'Tall'? The less-ironic, but still annoyingly termed 'Grande'? Or the absurdly titled 'venti', which translates as twenty, a number that does not complete the "tall/Grande/_____" triumvirate?

"...A Tall," he finally answered.

"Fine," I grumbled and walked to the coffee pots. I started to pour his coffee into the cup and then he stopped me.

"Leave some room for cream in there, son!" he yelled, like poison.

I left a small portion of the cup empty and handed it to him. He stared at it like I had shit in the cup.

"What is this?"

"The coffee that you ordered."

"Can you fill it up, please?"

"But you asked...ok, no problem," I took the cup back. And I filled it with a few dribbles of coffee.

"This is still not full."

"Did you want me to leave room for cream?"

"Yes, but I also want you to fill up the cup."

"So," I questioned, "you want room for cream in a completely full cup?"

"Yes. I want a full cup of coffee."

"Very well." I filled the cup to the brim and gave it to him. He seemed happy as he sauntered over to the cream section. I don't know what he did next (it was out of my eye-line), but I have a vivid mental image of him taking a sip of coffee and then pouring some cream into his mouth, swishing them around like mouthwash, and then swallowing the entire bundle.

I bet it didn't taste nearly as good as my baked potato.

Music department shenanigans

2007-05-02T09:32:00.000-04:00

Hello.

It was an interesting day at work yesterday, not least of which because one of the "Head Honchos" in our region came to investigate the store. This meant a number of things: my boss's boss was in the store, so she was tied up for most of the day and little things (like authorization to log into the computer) went unnoticed for upwards of two hours. This also meant that every time he would walk into the music department (where I was working), I had to drop whatever I was doing and talk to him. Here's how our conversations would usually go:

Me: "Hi."
Him: "Hello. What do you think of the classical music sale we're having?"
Me: "Well..."
Him: "Uh-huh. And the DVDs? Do you know how we can better sell DVDs?"
Me: "Yes, I think..."
Him: "Uh-huh. Ok, thanks for chatting."

And he would leave. He asked me, no kidding, four times for input into something but would then not actually wait for an answer.

But he was really the least of my concerns in music, mainly because when you work in the music department, you become a pariah of sorts. You're enclosed in an environment completely foreign to most of the people that work at Booth and Noble. Usually, the only contact you get with other employees is when they punch in or out for their breaks, because the "timekeeping" computer is at the front of the music department.

The exception to this is when someone comes to relieve you and give you your break. It usually occurs about halfway through a shift.

When I came back from my break yesterday, I arrived midway through a conversation between a woman and the employee who had relieved me. Here is what I heard:

Woman: "....directed by Francis Ford Coppola"
Employee: "...um..Ok. I'll check the computer." She types on the computer for a little bit and then comes up with nothing. "Ma'am, the only The Black Stallion I have coming up on my computer was directed by Carroll Ballard. Is this the one you're looking for?"
Woman: "I don't know. Maybe. I know what the cover looks like."

The employee found the right movie, but the woman left without ordering it.

Later, I received a phone call from a customer who disliked, intently, the fact that he had to talk on the phone. This I know because he made it abundantly clear:

"Hey!" He yelled this into the phone the way old people still refer to the digital clocks as "The Machine" ("What time is it, Granddad?" I don't know, Paul, why don't you check The Machine?"). "Hey there, son. I want to know if you have a movie."

"Ok, I can check that for you, sir. What title are you looking for?"

"Wishmaster 4. Make sure it's Wishmaster 4. The last time I called I was told it was Wishmaster 4, but they ordered me Wishmaster 3! If I'd wanted Wishmaster 3, I would have said, 'Wishmaster 3'!"

"Ok, I've got Wishmaster 4 on the computer, but I don't have any in the store. Can I order it for you?"

"Yeah. I got Wishmaster 1, Wishmaster 2, and Wishmaster 3 all at home. I just need this one to round out the trilogy."

"Uh...sir..." I think better of it. "No, that's a good idea."

I put the movie in the shopping cart for him and start to place his order.

"Can I get your phone number, sir?"

He gives me his number. Since he's ordered something from us before, his name pops up.

"Ok, I see you've ordered from us before, so I'll just place this order for you..."

"WAIT!" he screams. I wait. "What name comes up?"

"Um..." and I tell him his name. Let's call him Earl Smithery.

"No!" he yells. "My name is Earl F. Smithery."

"Wait, you want me to put Earl F. Smithery?"

"Yes! My mama gave me an F, so damn it, I'm gonna put an F there."

"You can put an F anywhere you want, sir. Ok, I've changed your name to Earl F. Smithery."

"AND WHAT ADDRESS DO YOU HAVE FOR ME?"

I read him the address we have on file.

"That's fine. That's fine."

"Do you want me to mail you the movie directly to your home, sir?"

"NO! That FUCKING UPS always leaves it on my doorstep. Anyone can take my Wishmaster if they wanted to."

"Ok, so I'll order it into the store." I suddenly saw a vicious gang of DVD thieves wandering around Schenectady, pilfering UPS boxes, gleefully opening them up, and staring wide-eyed when they saw Wishmaster 4 before them. Their eyes would widen, and their mouths would slacken, for they had never beholden such a wonder. "Wishmaster 4" they would whisper to themselves. "Can it be? Can it possibly be?" They would look at themselves, see the horror they represent, the death of society and the scourge of humankind. Slowly, ever so slowly, the would put the DVD back in the UPS box and back away from the doorstep, whispering so that only the dead can hear, "thank you Earl F. Smithery. Thank you."

I order his movie to the store and Earl F. Smithery hangs up without saying thank you. Just wait until he sees Wishmaster 4...then he'll think about his poor ways and become, just like those before him, a hero. A hero with a machine.

Addendum to the Welcome

2007-04-30T20:25:00.000-04:00

As I have been informed, I left out a section of the Booth and Noble workplace experience. Let me rectify this situation immediately, lest I be proclaimed an imbecile, a dolt, or a Dill Pickle.

6 The Cashwrap. You probably know it is the cash registers, or the line-that-never-ends. But we know it as, "the customer hell." Although you may think it is annoying waiting for us to finish our job ringing up the person ahead of you in line, let me just remind you of a few things that slow down the process:
A) writing checks. Hey! They give you a card! It does the same thing in 1/10 the time! USE IT. And if you're going to ask me the date -- DON'T! Know the date. And don't ask me to repeat the price so you can write it down...AGAIN. They make receipts for that task. NEXT!
B) Paying with change is not only annoying, it's also really lame. 'nuff said.
C) I do not want to chat with you about the weather. Especially if it's nice outside. ESPECIALLY IF IT'S THE START OF MY SHIFT.
D) Hey fellas? Clean out your damn wallet every once in awhile, will ya? I know it's exciting to hold on to that ticket stub for "A River Runs Through It," but did you need to bring it here?

Sorry I forgot about this important aspect of the Booth and Noble family.

Drugs, Hugs, and Janet Evanovich - Bookseller Day

2007-04-30T10:47:00.000-04:00

Hello.

Yesterday was an exciting, busy day at the Booth and Noble. For a beautiful, Sunday it was particularly busy, which is exciting for those of us in the "book biz" because it means that we have lots to do. It is also a terrible situation because it means we have lots to do and we can't always do it because we are dealing with idiotic questions.

We Grunts refer to Sunday as "the day they let the inmates out." We open at 10, and it's very slow until about noon, when Church gets out. Then we get slammed with the onslaught of the throngs of the masses. Some days I get a line two or three people deep waiting to ask their ever-so-important questions. We can always tell the Church people, because they are dressed up, they have uncomfortable-looking children with them, and they always flock to the Religious Fiction section, which is overrun with books that have pictures of dark, shadowy figures and women with bonnets on the covers.

Anyway. Sundays can be annoying, to say the least.

A gentleman comes up to the counter. He is, unusually for a customer at Booth and Noble, polite. With a hat cocked on his head and a black, button down shirt, he appears quite dapper. A thin mustache graces his upper lip, like a small pet. He looks up at me (he's quite short) and asks, demurely,

"Do you have any books about hallucinogens?"

I stop in my tracks. Maybe I'M on hallucinogens, and I'm imagining this whole thing.

"Excuse me?" I ask. "Did you say, hallucinogens?"

"Yes," he replied, "hallucinogens."

"Like mushrooms and LSD and that stuff?"

"Yes."

"Do you want a book about the dangers of hallucinogens?"

"No, I want a book on how to make them."

"HOW TO...I mean, How to make hallucinogens? Like, Acid?"

"Yeah, I want to make them."

And then I look at the other books he has in his hands: How to Start a Small Business and How to Make Friends and Influence People.

I look it up in the computer. I could only find a few books, and most of them were about all drugs, not just hallucinogens. I asked, "would you like a book on cannabis? We have plenty of those in the gardening section." I led him over there and sat him down. A few minutes later he was gone...and I never saw him leave. .....

A little later a woman comes up to me. She is middle aged, probably abotu 53, and a little large. Also, she is very tall and looks down at me with massively eye-shadowed eyes: "Excuse me sir," she asks, "but, do you read?"

I look at her. "Yes, yes I do read."

"Well, have you seen the movie Time Alone? [note, I don't actually remember what movie she mentioned, so I made this up]"

"I have not."

"It stars that women...she was just made a dame..."

"Uh..."

"Judy...Douche. That's it."

"Do you mean Judy Dench?" I correct her.

"Yeah, maybe. Anyway, is there a book for that?"

I check. There is not, and I tell her so.

"Oh, that's my favorite movie. So...can you recomend a book to me? I have never read and I would like to start."

Now, I find it hard to believe that someone has NEVER READ a book. But I take this in stride.

"Have you tried Stephen King?"

"Sir, I have not read a book. I don't even know who that is."

I swallow to kill some time while I think. So I lead her over to the mystery section. "I might try something here, because these are pretty quick and pretty easy."

"I have gotten some recommendations from people to start reading. Let me know what you think," she says, unfolding a piece of paper. She begins to read: "Oscar Wilde. Thomas Pynchon. Kurt Vonne..." I cut her off.

"Those are all excellent authors," I say, "but it might be useful to work up to them. Why don't you try James Patterson?

She picks up Along Came a Spider and looks at the cover. "This looks like too much for me." She puts it down. I can't believe it -- I have just literally seen someone judge a book by its cover.

I take her one step over. "Why not try this?" I hand her a copy of Jonathan Kellerman -- mystery. She looks at it, but puts its back too. We then continue our journey until I have a brain flash.

"Here," I say, thrusting a book into her hand. "You will love this."

"This looks great!" She explains. And proudly walks off with One for the Money by Janet Evanovich. It, you see, was blue on the cover -- very calming.

Such was Sunday. Day of rest indeed...

Welcome!

2007-04-30T08:39:00.000-04:00

Hello.

I have decided to move this blog off of MySpace and onto Blogger. I am not sure why I am doing this, but for some reason it feels good.

Perhaps I'll get fired.

To those new to this blog, let me explain:

I work at a book store. To hide its identity, let's call it Booth and Noble.

I am what is perhaps best known as a "Book Grunt." Our motto is "uuuuuuhhh?... ::Sigh:: .....huuuuuh."

Because I work part-time (I am a full time student elsewhere), I have been a "Book Grunt"
for full on three years (I had my three year anniversary this month. No one noticed.)

There are five main "areas" at Booth and Noble that I am qualified to work. Let's now go over each of them to give a little more background:

1) Bookfloor. The most obvious. These are the Grunts that you, as customers, probably interact with most of the time. We, as Grunts, stand behind the counter, waiting for you to come up and ask your questions. Usually the questions are stupid and we laugh at you when you leave. For example, yesterday a customer came up to me while I was working at the Info desk and asked "Where in Fiction is Danielle Steel?" I was gobstopped. Where -- IN FICTION -- is Danielle Steel? It's hard to explain, for the thousandth time, that fiction is arranged alphabetically to people that somehow have managed to survive and -- even worse -- procreate. That means they've increaesed the population with morons who --let's assume they don't know fiction is arranaged alphabetically -- CAN'T SCAN SIX BOOKCASES for DANIELLE STEEL -- one of the most prolific authors at Booth and Noble. Yes, this what most Grunts deal with day in and day out. uuuuuuhhh?... ::Sigh:: .....huuuuuh."

2) Music. I am here most often, at least for the moment, either because I have an expansive knowledge of movies (movies are kept with music not because they're similar forms of mass media, but because they're equally overpriced and need a "special section"), or because they want to keep me away from the customers, most of whom I treat with scorn or derision. Music is its own world, where magic fairies fly around and create happiness for people -- and are they ruthlessly crushed by the giant foot of Corporate America. There is a special breed of customers reserved for Music -- those too idiotic to read. Nothing pains me more than to "help" a customer find "Yanni," which I have to do on a weekly basis. Needless to say, we have abotu 30 Yanni CDs, and invariably I am asked "which is your favorite?" I usually cock an eyebrow and say, "well, I find Yanni's music too active and distracting for me. I prefer a softer sound. Have you tried "silence" by the "unharmonies? uuuuuuhhh?... ::Sigh:: .....huuuuuh."

3) Cafe. Although I am not here very often, I have a feeling that's going to change. This Saturday, for instance, I will be working in Cafe. Here people go to buy cakes and coffees, and often, to sit for hours and hours and read magazines that they then put back on the shelf. I have no problem with people not buying the magazines -- Hell, if we're going to let them read them in the cafe, then sure, take advantage of that. But what I have a problem with is when I find Playboys, Penthouses, Hustlers, Maxims, FHM's, et. al, in the men's room at the end of the night. Can you believe this shit? (Literally?) How would you feel about the following situation?: you walk into the bathroom after an 8 hour shift and feel the need to use the toilet. You sit down and look around you -- one wall says something about cocks and mothers, the other says something extremely witty about bosoms -- and sitting there on the toilet paper roll is a gentleman's magazine! And it's thumbed through! And...it's...kinda stuck together...and....you suddenly realize you have to bring it back to the back room. "uuuuuuhhh?... ::Sigh:: .....huuuuuh." (Just then, you look down and see a copy of "Sexual Massage" and decide that the Human Race is going to breed itself out of existance.)

4) Receiving. Here is the "back room," where the heart of the store pumps its magical brew into the rest of the departments. The books are delivered in giant, 40 pound boxes back here. These boxes are then opened, the contents scanned and shelved on carts. These carts are taken out to the book floor the following morning to be shelved on the real shelves out there, where most of them will sit until the day Booth and Noble closes or burns to the ground, except for Oprah's book club books, which will be bestsellers and go home to customers who will not read them, but proudly display them proclaiming to all the world that "Uh, I may have gotten my M.R.S. Degree, but at least I watch enough Television to know which books are going to be bestsellers" and they TOTALLY don't understand the inherent failure of logic in that thought -- while at the same time, we Grunts deride the Oprah books while each secretly reading them, hoping against hope that some day -- SOME DAY -- Oprah will pick a book that WE like. So that's receiving. When I work here, I usually don't have stories because I don't have to deal with customers. But I do usually have to move boxes for hours, which believe me is much less fun than it sounds.

5) Children's Department -- I rarely work in the children's department. In fact, I make it a goal of mine not even to enter the children's department. The thought of trying to find one 6 page book in the onslaught of hundreds of thousands of 6 page books make me want to vomit all over the nearest child. Plus, children run around, no one bothers to put books away (parents are so sick of putting their children's stuff away at home that they don't bother to put their stuff away at Booth and Noble, and in fact will leave extra stuff out for us to put away because THEY'RE EVIL). Children are loud and full of snot, which they leave on things that we have to touch. I was there when a kid peed in the corner of the department. I try and stay away.

So that's Booth and Noble. I try and post something after every shift I have. Occasionally, I will post here stories from my previous blog (http://blog.myspace.com/pbooth) to make up some time. Feel free to share similar stories here as well.

If I have one goal in my life, it's to jump into a vat of jello. If I have two goals, however, the second would be to have more intelligent customers come into Booth and Noble. No, not "smart" customers, but more intelligent. Customers who understand the process of buying books, music or movies. Who understand what "alphabetical" means (and might even be able to quote most of the alphabet). Who don't pee in the corners of the store.

I am a Grunt. It is my job, and I am proud of it. uuuuuuhhh?... ::Sigh:: .....huuuuuh.