Don Knotts 1924-2006

Don Knotts has died.
One of the first movies I remember saying was my favorite was "The Incredible Mr. Limpet." I thought it was amazing that they could turn him into a fish so he could act the part.
Godspeed, Mr. Knotts.

BtB3:SoBtB part 2 (in which I finish the story about david)

The nice couple has left. The store is generally empty; there are old women getting romance novels; I am finishing up a transaction. [cue music]
David wanders up to the counter, holding a collection of horror stories. [weet! weet! weet! weet!] Ha! He's going to leave! He's going to get the book and leave! "All ready?" I ask him, a sliver of hope MAY have crept into my voice, but let's leave that to speculation.
"No man, not yet, I just saw this book," he holds it up, "And it reminded me of this other book I want to get for my friend; do you have any other books that look like this?"
He did not just say that.
"Sorry, I can't look anything up that way. Did you check on the shelf where you got that?"
"Yeah, I didn't see it. Hey, do you have any books by Vincent Price?"
Ah yes, Vincent Price, author of such fine books as "People: The Other Other Other Other White Meat," "Things That Go I Will Haunt You in the Night," and the classic "Goodnight Moon." You know the one.
"Um, was there a title you had in mind?"
"It's my friend's birthday next week and I wanted to get him a book by Vince Price, but I don't know any titles. I'd know the book if I saw it." He thinks. "I saw a movie at his house that had Vincent Price, do you have the book they made out of it?"
Of course, there's still an hour and a half until we close, I've got time. He'll be gone soon. Right?
"Well, what was the movie you saw?"
"The Black Cat or The Raven or something."
For those of you tapping your temple with your index finger, what I suggest next may be skipped. "Oh, those books were written by Edgar Allan Poe, he's down in the Classics section, you might want to try there."
"Thanks man," he turns to go downstairs and puts the book he was holding on the counter, "Can you put this away for me?"
He ambles down, I hear him greet Clint, who offers a less than enthusiastic response. Ah, time to relax and count my lucky stars he isn't talking to me anymore.

INTERMISSION
Man 1: My dog has no nose.
Man 2: How does he smell?
Man 1: Terrible.
(rim shot)
END INTERMISSION

We're about to close. It's three minutes to nine and I can still hear David talking to Clint. It's a sort of steady droning wafting up the stairs. Nine o'clock. Closing time. Being crafty, I decide to call downstairs from the phone upstairs in an effort to get Clint to answer so as to get him out of the non-sequiturian conversation that he is undoubtably trapped in. Patting myself on the back, I call. It rings. I hear it ring. He does not answer.
Eventually, I hear Clint tell him point-blank that we are closing. David comes ambling up, ambles to his things, takes them and begins ambling to the door. Of course he's not buying anything. Clint is turning off the lights. "Have you ever seen The Ring?"
I was sooo close. So close. What should I say? I have, the week before on TV, but that answer didn't work so well with Lord of the Rings... "No." Is it the right answer? Will he say You should and then move on, into the night?
He then tells me the plot, that it is "really scary, man." "Do you have a VCR?" he asks.
"Yes..."
"I'll bring it in, you can borrow it."
"Oh wow, thanks," I say. His hand is on the door. "Goodnight."
He leaves, finally. Clint and I breathe a sigh of relief. "Did he ask you about The Ring?"
"Yeah." We talk about how crazy David was for a while, he asked Clint about books by Vincent Price too. "Why didn't you answer the phone? I was trying to help you out."
"I didn't know it was you. Besides, I don't answer the phone after closing anyway."
He leaves and we give mutual words of good night and see you later. Guess when I see David again.

That's right, never.

every class has one of these

PROFESSOR [who was late because his wife accidently planed off the very tips of her fingers while she was making a violin]: It's actually a pretty common accident.
OLDER STUDENT [who between spouting innane jabbler and being annoying drives me nuts]: Oh, yeah (implied "it is").

What?! What?!

(His wife is all right, she did not even need stitches.)

tales from behind the books 3: son of tales from behind the books

This evening was really slow. I mostly re-read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for the third? fourth? time and remarked to myself on the refreshing lack of crazy people. There was a guy who came in at 6 with a box of books and told me that he'd pick them up at 8:45, which fired off the neurons that trigger the stab-customer-with-little-pointy-thing-that-we-stick-papers reaction, which was, as always, followed closely by the no-don't-do-it-you-fool neurons. There was a guy who stayed in the store for like, two hours though. He does not, however, take the staying in the store longest prize. Who does, you may ask? Well that one goes to a man I like to call David...
It's Christmastime, and a young couple is getting handfuls of children's books for their friends who recently had a child. They were brilliant enough to look up all the books they want on our website and to print out a list, most customers come in and ask if we have a book...it was...blue... and their papers are spread out on a section of my counter. I don't mind, it's pretty slow and they are nice people.
Rewind a couple of hours, when in walks one of the ugliest women I have ever seen. Whoops, sorry, my bad, it's a guy with droopy eyelids and long hair and one of those floppy rastafarian-type hats (only black and not as huge). He wanders back into the store for about two hours. After I have completely forgotten about him, he heads out the door. I, per custom, say something along the lines of "Have a nice day."
Why oh why did I say that?
He turns and comes up to me and sets his soda, his bag from RadioShack and his bag from Hallmark down on the couple's papers. He also smells pretty rank, like he's been smoking and boozing for a while. [Clint and I would later argue what he actually smelled like, but that's beside the point.] "I already did," he says, peeling the RadioShack bag from a pair of Sony headphones. "I got such a good deal on these. They were expensive, but they were on sale, man." After he goes over the finer points of why he chose them--
"My name's David," he says, putting out his hand, which I shake. "I'm staying with my mom for a while, she lives in the apartments across from here."
"Ah." What would you say? This guy is not young.
"Hey man," he says to me, opening his eyes wide, "Do you like Lord of the Rings?"
I eye the drink, a puddle of condensation is soaking into the papers. I just want this guy out, he obviously isn't going to buy anything. And he smells.
"Yeah," I tell him, figuring it's the easiest answer.
"Check this out man," he slowly pulls an ordament box out of the Hallmark bag. "It's Gandolf."
"That's cool." Oh God, he's opening it.
"Yeah," It's all the way out of the box now. "I know it's an ordament, but I'm going to treat him like a model or something, man. And like, they had a Sam and Frodo one, but the guy said they were out of it. Sam, Sam was the brains of that group, you know?"
I say I do. Please, make him leave.
"Well, Gandolf is still cool. He has his staff," He points to the staff. "He has his hat," He points to the hat. "That's an awesome hat, man." He starts putting the tiny wizard away and the male half of the couple quickly takes the papers from underneath the drink and relocates them to another part of my counter. I apologize quietly, he smiles.
David takes out a small glass thing with a clock set in it from the Hallmark bag. He proceeds to tell me all about it, why he chose it and then that the salesman reccomended it when he said he wanted something inexpensive for his mother and on and on.
"Can I leave my stuff here?" What? "I'm gonna go look around."
"Um, yeah, ok."

Little do I know, this has just begun...

"my humps" is the worst song. ever. EVER.

Oh my goodness, that song is so bad, I can't even begin to elaborate on it. I--I just had to say something.

tales from behind the books part deux

This happened a while ago, during the annual Sidewalk Sale were we try to get rid of our non-selling, poor-condition, overstock books. Advertising for it it nil, which is why people often come in, worried, asking if we're closing. One year it was so poorly done that sales dropped dramatically; but that's a story for another day.
There are a handful of regular customers, mothers shopping for their children and themselves, old women, old men who are always disappointed if there is a lack of females behind the counter; and most of them I like enough not to sigh when I see them. However, about a half hour before closing during the Sale, a woman comes in with about five books. She has very frizzy hair, a wrinkled windbreaker, a big hiking backpack, and an obviously full fanny pack. She watches me as I check to see if we can take any of her books. I hate it when customers do this. Hate it.
When I ring up her credit, I scan her card and, under "Notes," in captiatl letters, is says something like:
ASK CUSTOMER FOR ID! DO NOT GIVE CREDIT WITHOUT ID! CARD HAS BEEN STOLEN!
That's a new one.
"Um, ma'am," I say, not sure what to make of it. "This says I need to ask you for ID."
"Oh no, that's me," she says, her eyes wide and nodding. The thought crosses my mind that if she had stolen it, that is exactly what she would say. But it's $4.20 in credit, now twenty minutes before closing, so I don't think about that too much. "You see, someone broke into my house and stole my card."
"Oh my." I'm NEVER sure what to say when customers tell me these things. Like the woman in the wheelchair who brought in 60 books and kept talking about how she couldn't walk anymore and how the doctors put her in the chair and how hard it is to get around her apartment and she can't cook anymore, she used to be a gourmet chef, but now she can't cook. All this while I'm ringing in her books. Her cookbooks. Her Martha Stewart cookbooks in never-used condition. Her Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks. When she first started, I almost said something about countertop modification, now I'm sure she was a cook...but gourmet? Anyway...
The windbreaker woman tells me about how many times she called the police, how they don't do anything. How someone in the police force is conspiring against her. He breaks in. He stole her card. Out of her purse. Someone is stalking her, probably the same person who breaks in and steals things. Her eyes start to water up.
The recipt prints, I give it to her and she browses outside until I close.
I'm frightened for her, about the stalking, the police unassistance. Not for too long though, because I remember something Clint told me about her: She's schizophrenic. I remember seeing video of schizophrenics in Psych. And they all ran in pretty much the same vein as the woman here. It becomes obvious she is off her meds, if she's ever had them.
Sometimes a bookstore isn't the happiest place to work.

One day I was alone in the store, one of the regulars, a woman with whom I usually share pretty good banter, came to the register and set down the books she had gotten from downstairs. She comes in with her kids, a son and a daughter. They're cute kids and never cause a scene. All of the books she just put on the counter are about divorce. I remember one of them was how to keep your children from getting hurt. I ran it up without saying anything. When she was at the door I croaked out "Have a nice night" and thought how stupid that was to say. She thanked me and left. I haven't seen her since.

Funny stories later.

tales from behind the books

I work at a used bookstore. Plastic bags stuffed with dog-eared romance novels and cigarette smoke are like my disgusting bread and butter. I get more women in there than I did at Ace. It may be a stereotype, but it's true. The store works on a credit system, we take in books that we can (no more than two of the same title!) and give you 30% of what our price is in credit. People usually have no problem with it. People even don't usually have a problem with the "Handling Fee" that we charge (.50 per book over $4 and .25 per book under). I think it's stupid and don't always charge people for it.
This is all basis for stories to come.
Our prices are not the lowest, but our books are often in pristine quality. They are, in most cases, 40% off the cover price. And here, ladies and gentlemen, is where my story starts.

It's a Sunday, slow as usual, and a little old woman comes up to the register where I am standing with three hardback books. "You are soo expensive," she says as she puts them down. "I don't blame you, honey. But the prices here are awfully high."
I've heard this before. It's an old bit.
"I'm sorry miss, would you like me to see if we have these in paperback?" This works nine times out of ten, they may not have thought about that, maybe the book is new and we probably have it. She has three popular mysteries, since mystery is my section and I just shelved, I know that we have them in stock. Hell, I'll even get them for her. She's old.
"Oh no, that's alright. I have to get them in hardback because my eyes are so bad." Oh man, she sounds like she might cry, which is, of course, a cue that leads into: "It's just I don't have too much money and can't afford to buy them new."

Geez.

"I'm terribly sorry, madam," I say this a lot. "But there's nothing I can do." I feel bad for her, but I saw inside her purse --it's full of receipts-- and I've dealt with enough people to know when they're lying. She's not totally lying, but seriously, I'm sick of people griping about the prices. And they usually mention they saw it at Costco for $5. I ring them up.
"Well, alright. I'll get them. They're just so expensive."
You've got to be kidding me. "If you'd like, I could put two of them on hold for you and you can buy them later."
"No, it's alright. Just I saw them--" stop me if you've heard this one "--at Costco."
I put my hands on the counter and open my mouth and suck in the air that will let me say "Well, go buy them at Costco then" but stop. Richelle, the girl who works with me on Sundays, is watching this whole thing. She's had her fair share of these people too, and probably knows what I would love to say.
The old lady pays and makes her way to the door, saying how very lucky they are to have such a nice young man working for them and how, even though it's expensive, she'll be back. I watch the door close.

She comes back in a half hour later. She bought them at a diffrent store across town. She wants to return them. It is not our policy to make returns, in fact, it is our policy to not make returns. I think seriously about telling her she shouldn't have bought the books if she was going to buy them somewhere else. I think about telling her tough luck.
But I take her card and make the return.

I never see her again.

oh man, but i am exciting

Last night I had a dream that I had to figure out the probability of something (don't ask what, as I only remember the number ".25," but I am pretty sure there was a Venn Diagram). And I could not get the numbers to come out correctly. IS IT A SHADOW OF WHAT IS TO COME?!
As I have a bonus problem with both a Venn Diagram and the number ".25" and also a math test come Tuesday, the answer can only be: most definitely. [Inside joke: I am very bad at math!]
If dreams are our unconscious expressing the frustrated desires of our subconscious and conscious minds, then I must desire to do poorly in math. Which is absurd--->I do not want to do poorly because then I could not get into a sweet graduate school.

I need to get out more.

senior year all over again

Trying to see if I want to, or in fact, am going to, transfer schools after two years brings back all the feels of trying to figure out college after high school; meaning: there are really smart people out there. And also the ever-popular: why did I plan on settling for the U of A for three years?
Because doing so pretty much means that I tried not at all. Which, surprise!, has consequences.
Anyway, long story short is that I will not be going to Stanford and not be able to gloat to my dad via envelopes of what I imagine to be air dewy sweet with the collective intelligence of bustling students. And although my idea of people striding to and from class wearing burgundy sweaters with great white S's on them has been disproved since Mary told me that no one strides to class, I still think it would be better than EWU.
(And there are no burgundy sweaters with great white S's, much to my dismay.)