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.