Mother's Day Question

"Twyla" was at the information desk. A woman came up and handed her a note. We get this fairly often, people who are deaf will write us notes with their book questions.

Her note said...

"I feel free to ask you one question. My daughter-in-law is pregnant in 6 weeks. Should I give her flower for Mother's Day?"

"Twyla" wrote on the paper, "It's the thought that counts. What a sweet gesture!"

The woman wrote back, "Thank you for helping."

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All the Bones?

One of our regular customers came in today, with short neat grey hair, wearing jeans, a white button-up shirt and a salmon colored sweater. I asked if I could help her find something.

"Yes you can," she replied, looking at a piece of paper she'd brought. "I'm looking for a new book called ALL THE BONES, and it's by a Phyllis or a Penelope or something. I can't read my own writing." She laughed a little.

"Hmm, okay, I'll see what I can find," I said as I started searching the computer. I didn't find any book with that specific title, never mind one with that title and a Penelope or Phyllis as an author. "I'm not finding any book with that exact title," I told her. "There are lots of titles with the word 'bones' in it..."

"Well, let me see," she said, looking at her paper again. "It's about Thomas Cromwell. And it's called ALL THE BONES."

While she was talking, I was continuing to search our system, using key words and exact title and title words (I just skipped the author part). "I'm not finding anything. Let me search the internet and see what I can find." I searched and found that Hilary Mantel has written two books about Thomas Cromwell.

"Is it BRINGING UP THE BODIES by Hilary Mantel?", I asked.

"That's it! Well, I was kind of close, with Phyllis or Penelope and the word 'bones', wasn't I?", she joked.

"Yep, pretty close!", I agreed. I walked over to the shelf, took a copy of the book and handed it to her. She was thrilled.

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This Was a First

A woman came to the counter with about seven large hardcover bargain books. She had short, stylish, dark hair, was wearing jeans and a black sweater. One of the books was THE ATLAS OF WORLD HISTORY, Another was TIME'S GREAT DISCOVERIES, another was NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC'S EXPLORATION EXPERIENCE. Several of the books had pictures of antique maps on them. One had a lovely scenic picture on it.

         

"I need to know your return policy," the woman said. "These are for my bookshelves and if they don't look right on the shelves, then I'd like to bring them back." As she was speaking, she gestured with her hands as if she were putting the books on a shelf facing outwards. "You know, if the colors aren't right for my living room, or if the books aren't just the right size for the shelves."

"Um, sure," I said. I told her that she could return the books with a receipt within two weeks.

"Oh, good," she said. "I just need something that looks nice on the shelves. I think these will work, but I won't really know until I get them home. And I got books that maybe even my kids might use someday."

"Right. Well, I hope they work out for you, but if not, you can bring them back," I said.

She bought all of the books.

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Swearing...necessary?

I answered the phone at the bookstore where I work. "Do you have the April issue of PCGamer magazine? It has a beta game. The April issue."

"Let me check," I said. After walking over to the newsstand, I looked at the current issue of PCGamer. "No, I'm sorry, I don't. I have the May issue. As soon as the new issues come in, the old ones go out. We don't have any back copies of magazines."

"Are you sure it's not the April issue?" she asked again. "There's a game in there that my son really wants."

"I'm holding it in my hand, and it is the May issue," I said.

"Well that sucks," she spat. "My son really wanted that game."

"I'm sorry," I said. "We don't all get our shipments on the same day. You could try calling another bookstore and see if maybe they still have the April issue."

"Fine. I guess I'll have to do that then." And she hung up.

Another phone call had a young woman calling and asking if we had a specific textbook in stock at the store.

"We don't usually carry textbooks, and we don't have that one in stock" I told her.

"SHIT."

"Ah, we can order it for you, or you can order it online if you'd like," I offered.

"No. never mind," she said right before she hung up.

A third call came from a man. He wanted me to order a book for him. I was having a hard time hearing him and had to ask him to repeat things several times. I asked if he'd like to be notified by email when the book would be shipped and he said he would. He stumbled several times over his email address, and I had to ask for clarification on some of the letters. "F" can sound like "S" over the phone, "B" can sound like "P", and so on. Evidently I asked for clarification one too many times for him and he said "GODDAMNIT" pretty loudly. We did ultimately get through the call with his order complete.

sigh.

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