I'm So Dirty!

A woman came up to the counter, greying hair, shirt striped with different shades of blue. "I have a book on hold," she said.

"Okay, what's your last name?," I asked. She said her name and I turned behind me and retrieved the book off the hold shelf. She sighed and sighed again. "Is something wrong?," I asked.

"Well. You touched it. The book. You just touched it and you'd just been touching your face. I have a germ phobia, and now you've touched it," she said.

"Ah," I said, a little stunned. I put the book wrapped in its hold slip down on the counter. "Well, we have wipes, I can wipe my hands."

"It's too late, you already touched it," she said.

"Your book is wrapped mostly in the hold slip, which is what I was touching," I said.

"No, I saw. You touched a corner of the book too."

"Okay," I said, stepping back from the counter, knowing this wasn't going well. "I'll get some wipes."

"Well, that might help, if you don't touch where you already touched."

After I wiped my hands, I removed the rubber band and paper from the book and set it down on the counter without touching the book. "I have to touch the scanner," I told her, and I started wiping it.

"Are those those Lysol wipes? You shouldn't be using those, those are bad for you, they'll make you sick," she said. "I'm just thinking about you."

"Well, these are what I'm using right now. It's what I have," I told her.

"You should wash your hands right after this, then," she said. "It doesn't matter about wiping the scanner," she said.

I'd been thinking about how since my hands were (evidently) so dirty and I'd been touching the scanner all day, that touching the scanner again would then sully my hands after I'd wiped them. But whatever.

"You can get rid of the paper, I don't want it," she said.

"Well, I need the paper, I need a number off of it. But I won't touch the paper," I said. She sighed. I entered what I needed to from the paper and scanned the book without touching it.

"I'm sorry," I said, "but I touch money all day, which is dirtier than my hands."

"Well that makes me feel better, telling me that," she snapped. "This is why it's hard for me to buy things in public places," she said, almost to herself. She held her credit card gingerly with her index finger and her thumb. "Can I slide it now?" she asked.

"Yes, you can slide the card," I told her. She slid the wrong side of the card in the machine. She realized this and turned it around, trying to barely touch the card and not touching the machine. I did not to tell her that some people lick their credit cards if the machine won't read the card the first time.

"Would you like a bag?", I asked.

"Yes. I would like a bag," she said.

"I have to touch it, but I won't touch your book. I tried to use as few fingers as possible to get a bag. I grabbed a tissue to use between my hand and the book, and put the book in the bag.

I took the receipt from the register, but did not touch the one she had to sign. I placed the receipt in the bag, and then the bag on the counter, again trying have as little contact between my hands and the bag. "All right, that's it," I said. She took the bag and left. I was exhausted.

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Domestic Violets

There is a new book making the rounds at the bookstore...DOMESTIC VIOLETS by Matthew Norman.

          


First J. read it, and she has been telling everyone to read it. "It's kind of like a Jonathan Tropper book," she told me. Who she knows I love. Tropper's books are funny, his main characters are in almost cataclysmically bad situations, and the main characters often don't make good life decisions. And they are very funny. Like THE BOOK OF JOE. In it, the main character has written a novel about a town, people and incidents he borrowed and borrowed heavily, from his own hometown, exposing secrets about residents and not casting them in a very favorable light. His novel is then made into a very popular movie. Joe has never intended to ever go home again...until his father has a stroke. As you can imagine, he is not welcomed back very warmly. It's great.

"It's like a Jonathan Tropper book," she said, "but this main character doesn't get into quite such awful situations, and some of it is kind of sweet. And insightful. You should read it," she told me.

And so I did.

One of the first things we learn about Tom Violet is that he is having problems with his penis. The first few pages being about penis problems put me off at first, not being as fascinated with that particular part of the male anatomy as so many men seem to be.

But I got past that. And I'm glad I did. Not only is Tom having problems with his manhood, he works as a copy-writer for a soul-sucking corporation. He is also a writer, whose father is an incredibly successful, Pulitzer-prize winning author, so living in THAT shadow has been hard. He also kind of has a crush on a co-worker, and his penis problems have precipitated problems in his marriage. Or his marriage problems precipitated his penis problems. Poor Tom.

DOMESTIC VIOLETS was not only a fun read, it kept me engaged, despite the penis troubles (and by the way? if you are having trouble reading this blog post because of the word "penis", then you probably want to pass on this book.) Some of the plot points were kind of predictable, but many weren't, and I really liked the ending. Good read!

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This was a First

A co-worker asked if I could go help a woman in the Newsstand. "She's blond and she's wearing black," she said. I headed over to the magazines, and saw a woman, about 5'8", neat, short blond haircut, wearing a black dress and black pumps. She was holding a notebook.

"Do you need help finding something?", I asked.

"I do," she said, quickly, glancing at her notebook. "I need some magazines, and I can't find some of them. Do you have Audubon, American Cowboy, Sport Fishing, Saltwater Sportsman, US News, and Popular Mechanics. Those are the only ones I haven't found." She seemed rushed.

"Okay, let's see what we can find."

We looked for the magazines and found a few of them. As we did, she crossed them off her list. She had a huge stack of magazines she'd already found, and took them up to the register. I didn't ring her up, but overheard the cashier tell her the total - over $240 - and she asked her why she was buying so many, was it for work?

Evidently so! She was buying magazines for a private jet. They do this every month, she said. They buy a variety of different magazines to have on the jet so that those who fly have plenty to read. She said that she usually isn't the one who does this (which might explain her seeming rushed), she's filling in for the person who usually does the monthly magazine buying. For the private jet.

This was a first!

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Wonder Bar

A woman came up to the Information desk. She was about 5'10", maybe in her 60's, wearing a black, drapey shirt, with a bright pink and green scarf around her neck. Her hair was highlighted and windblown and she had lipliner with the lipstick faded out.

"I'm looking for a book," she said, "and I don't know the author. I'm pretty sure the title is Wonder Bar. I read about it, it's Wonder Bar."

"Hmm," I say as I check our system for the title. "I don't know that one, and that title isn't coming up in our system...could it be perhaps, Wonder Boys? Or Tender Bar? Those titles are similar..."

"No. Neither of those. It's fiction, I know that. It's Wonder Bar. I wish I could remember the author." she says.

"Well, let me look on the internet, see what I can find," I say. I search the internet, come up with no books with that title. "Do you know what it's about?"

"Let's see, it's about a boy who goes into bars and finds his father. No wait, he finds fathers. In a bar. Something like that." She waves her hand.

"Okay," I say, "I'll keep looking." She wanders away from the desk, evidently figuring that I won't find it. I search that basic plot line and come up with Tender Bar, which is a memoir about a boy who finds father figures as he spends time in a bar as he's growing up. I retrieve the book from the shelf and take it to her. "I think this might be it," I say. "It's not fiction, but it is a memoir about a boy who spends time in a bar and finds men who become father figures to him."

"That's IT!", she says. "Thank you so much!"

       

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