The Grunt-capades

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

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?

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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.