13 Conversations I Had As A Bookseller

1. Me: Hi, how may I help you?
The Customer: I’m looking for a book on war. The cover is red and the letters in the title are white.
Me: Um, there’s no search field in our data base for colors.

2. 9:00 am: the store opens
9:01 am: an outrageously incensed gentleman approaches the info desk, where I, of course, am on duty.
Customer: Last night I was reading a book, and I left it on that table over there. Now it’s gone. What happened to it?!
Me: Um, at night after we close we put all the books back on the shelves.
Me (silently): looking slowly around the store to convey the subtle message that we, in fact, keep all our books on shelves and not in piles on the furniture.

3. December, in the middle of the holiday shopping madness
A customer corners me in the back of the store where I am unsuccessfully trying to blend into the romance section.
Customer: Where is your luggage?
Me: (stunned into silence)
Me: Excuse me?
Customer: Your luggage. My son was just up at your other store, and he told me all about the great luggage he saw there.
Me: (struggling so hard to keep a straight face that I’m sure my eyeballs are going to pop right out of my head and drop onto the floor).
Me: (searching desperately for a tone that does not at all suggest that I am in any way mocking the customer).
Me: We don’t have any luggage.

4. Customer: I’m looking for a book. The author’s first name is John.
Me: I’m sorry, but there’s no way we can look up authors on the computer using only their first name.
Customer: (makes random noises of protest and disbelief.)
I enter “John” into the data base.
I turn the computer around to face the customer.
Me: OK, there are 485,972 possibilities that came up for “John”.
Customer: Oh.

5. Customer: Hi, I’d like to check out.
Me: I’m sorry, but you can’t check out here.
Customer: Why not? The lines up there are S-O-O-O long.
Me: Well, because see how there are no actual CASH REGISTERS here? That’s because this is the INFORMATION DESK, not the checkout counter.

6. Customer: Hi. I found this book I was looking for, but I only want this one page. What do I do?

7. Customer: Um, I’m sitting over there in the cafe trying to study, but I can’t, because the people behind the counter are being REALLY loud.
Me: Well, this is a store, not a library, so there’s nothing I can do about it.
Customer: (stunned that I am not leaping into any kind of action that confirms that she is, in fact, the center of the Universe.)
Customer: Well, they’re being really loud.
The customer stomps off in indignation.
Me: (silently) Ooh, good comeback. You really told me!

8. Customer: Hi, I need a Bible. But I really need the easy version.

9. Me: I ring up a purchase.
Me: That will be $27.95.
The customer writes a check.
Me: May I please see your driver’s license?
Customer: Angrily. Why? Are you profiling?
Me: No, we’re just like every place else that needs to see some ID when you pay with a check.
Me: (What I wanted to say: Yes, we are profiling for short, bald, ugly, angry old men.)

10. A customer approaches the information desk, clearly trying to impress me with her important “business woman” persona.
Customer: I’m on my way to give a presentation, and I need this book.
We don’t have it.
I call all of our other stores.
They don’t have it either.
Me: I’m sorry, but none of our stores have this book in stock right now.
Customer: That is unacceptable.
Customer: Gives me her “intimidating” stare to try and spur me into some kind of action.
Me: I think to myself, “Lady, I make $6.00 an hour working at a bookstore. There’s nothing you can do to me.
I just smile back at her and wait her out.
Customer: Flounces off. I guess I’ll just have to go to [our competitor].
Me: Would you like me to call them for you?

11+. Customer: Where is your/Where are your…
-xerox machine
-fax machine
-stamps
-highlighters

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13 Tag Lines I Decided Not To Use In My Tutoring Business

Before I start with my list I just want to announce that my very first podcast EVER is up and ready to go. If you’d like to listen to me speak about being a “Black Sheep Girl In A White Sheep World”, then just scroll down to the post right underneath this one and click on the link!

1. Your notebook makes me cry.

2. What did I just say?!

3. It’s true: The Spanish language is a worldwide conspiracy of pain and suffering directed at you.

4. Don’t blame me-I did not invent this language.

5. Yes, your teacher actually is doing all of this just because they hate you.

6. Are you actually listening to any of the words I’m saying, or am I talking just to hear the sound of my own voice?

7. Yeah, you should be afraid, because I am TOTALLY gonna kick your ass in this tutoring session!

8. You’re right; people who teach Spanish only go into that field because they enjoy watching other people suffer.

9. HEY! YOU! Eyes on me, not your text messages.

10. If you do not keep all of your papers perfectly organized in a 3-ring binder, there’s a chance you could die.

11. I’m sorry, but I’ve already answered that question five times. From now on, every time you ask me again it will cost you $10.

12. Truly, no one has EVER suffered from Spanish as much as you have. Someone should host a telethon on your behalf.

13. Conjugating verbs makes you irresistible to the opposite sex

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Thirteen Things about Jenny Ryan

1. “I think we can agree. The past is over.”-George W. Bush

2. “A zebra cannot change its spots.” -Al Gore

3. “It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.” -Dan Quayle

4. “If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.” -Bill Clinton

5. “There is a mandate to impose a voluntary return to traditional values.” -Ronald Reagan

6. “I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce.” -J. Edgar Hoover

7. “I’m running for president of the United States because I believe that-with strong leadership-America’s days will always lie ahead of us. Just as they lie ahead of us now.” -Bob Dole

8. “If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said.” -Alan Greenspan

9. “For seven and a half years I’ve worked alongside President Reagan. We’ve had triumphs. Made some mistakes. We’ve had some sex…uh…setbacks.” -George H.W. Bush

10 “Democracy used to be a good thing, but now it has gotten into the wrong hands.” -Jesse Helms

11. “Capital punishment is our society’s recognition of the sanctity of human life.” -Orrin G. Hatch

12+. “What we have here is an egregemous miscarriagement of taxitude.”

“I’m providing you with a copulation of answers to several questions raised…”

“The contagious people of Washington have stood firm against diversity during this long period of increment weather.”

“What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?”

“Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.”

-Marion Barry, former mayor of Washington, D.C.

From 1001 Dumbest Things Ever Said, ed. by Steven D. Price

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Thirteen Things about Jenny Ryan

1. I am afraid to stand behind my car and reach a-l-l the way into the back of the trunk because I know the moment I do, someone will come up behind me, push me in, and lock me in the trunk forever.

2. I am afraid to go to the bathroom during thunderstorms lest the toilet be struck by lightening and render me infertile and unable to ever again enjoy marital relations.

3. I am afraid that if I ever completely finish an entire alcoholic beverage by myself that I will instantly become a raving alcoholic. And so I never ever have.

4. I am terrified of running out of stale bread at the park and being pecked to death by an angry mob of ducks and geese.

5. I am afraid to be outside at night because I am afraid that bats will come and nest in my hair. It doesn’t matter if there are no bats anywhere near me, clearly NIGHTTIME=BATSNESTINGINHAIR TIME

6. I am afraid to call people-any people-on the phone.

7. I used to be afraid to order fast food because I had to talk to people by way of those scary speaker thingies.

8. It occurs to me that I might possibly be afraid of (talking to) people.

9. I am afraid I might somehow read every book in the entire known Universe and one day be left with nothing new to read.

10. I am afraid of imaginary snakes.

11. I am afraid that if I ever resolve all of my issues with my hair and my weight that I will then have nothing to think about all day and thus be r-e-a-l-l-y bored.

12. I am afraid that, when I am walking outside, if I don’t step on exactly the same number of pavement cracks with my right foot as I do with my left foot, that my feet will fall right off and I will have to spend the rest of my life hobbling painfully around on my sad little leg stumps.

13. I am afraid that if I actually reveal these inner workings of my mind on my blog, that I will scare away all of my readers.

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Thirteen Things about Jenny Ryan

Some have to do with playing video games; others, not so much.

1. What is that? Is that a fart cloud?

2. Jenny, do you wanna see my bra?
(upon coming into the kitchen) Oh, man! You need to tell me when you’re on the phone!

3. I didn’t want to call the store and tell them I spilled my spam all over my computer.

4. I hear snorting!

5. He wants to give you presents of fire.

6. Person #1: I’ve gotta put something on my pants.
Person #2: To make them magical?

7. Who doesn’t like to walk around their house naked?

8. Person #1: (makes a semi-obscene gesture to Person #2)
Person #2: Apparently he wanted to try and get me to honk my own boob.
Person #3: Yeah, it’s just like when you do this (makes the ‘honk your horn’ motion) to a truck driver.

9. Person #1: I think you’re killing everyone.
Person #2: (heavily sarcastic)Yes, I can make people burst into flames.

10. Oh, let’s break the men. If there are more men, let’s break them.

11. Bow before me!

12. I forgot how your ass shakes when you run.

13. Your adventure has ended.

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1. All the characters in Janet Evanovich’s “Stephanie Plum” mystery series.

2. Anything written by the Sweet Potato Queen, Jill Conner Brown.

3. Almost anything written by David Sedaris.

4. Anytime I can work the words “monkey” or “weasel” into a conversation.

5. Every time my cats slide across the kitchen floor and crash into the back door and then go, “I totally MEANT to do that.”

6. The scene in the movie “Moonstruck” where Cher’s character and Nicholas Cage’s character finally confess their love for each other to her family.

7. The scene in “Soapdish” where soap opera writer Whoopi Goldberg has to write a way to reintroduce a character onto the show who had previously been killed off through decapitation.

8. “The Princess Bride”-too many good lines to choose just a few here.

9. Everything Eddie Murphy’s character, “Donkey” says in the Shrek movies.

10. All the dialogue between the crew members on the short-lived TV show “Firefly” and its movie “Serenity”.

11. The “Friends” episode from Season Six entitled “The One With All The Thanksgivings”.

12. Heather B. Armstrong’s blog, “Dooce”

13. The blog of “Miss Doxie”.


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(leave your link in comments, I'll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!View More Thursday Thirteen Participants