true customer stories

There's a fresh crazy downtown, a rotund gal who always wears a striped red and white knit cap and giant sunglasses and totes around a bunch of junk in several white plastic grocery bags. She has a bizarre accent I can't place.

She does the thing several of them do, put stuff on hold that they never buy.
I don't know if it's wishful thinking, or an effort to look like a paying customer so you'll put up with their shit for longer. But it's a definite symptom.

She approaches the counter and I grab a stack of books to price, an ever-helpful buffer when dealing with problem shoppers.

"Excuse me, I bought a book here last week....a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, and someone stole it."

"Mmmm."

"I was wondering, do you have another copy?"

"If we did it'd be in the same section as the one you picked up."

"Oh, okay."

She wanders off.

But I knew it wasn't going to be that easy.
The book was just a claim on her real target, my time and attention.

A few minutes later, she's back.

"Excuse me, but it was on that table over there?" Gesturing at the new arrivals table.

"That's for new arrivals, we file books off the table into their sections. Do you know the subject?"

"Uh...contemporary?"

"Contemporary what? Is it a novel, is it about construction, what?"

"Nonfiction?"

"Okay, that's ninety percent of the store. Can you narrow it down any more?"

"Uhm, events? Contemporary events?"

"That might go upstairs with history."

"I can't walk up the stairs."

"Oh well, sorry."

*back to pricing books*


This one, I didn't feel bad about.