I'm Looking For A Book

 The Huffington Post has an article listed in today's post called Bookstore Bingo:13 Of The Most Ridiculous Things Overheard In A Bookstores. The examples are taken from a Tweeter hashtag (a grouping of tweets on the same subject) called Bookstore Bingo. The women who started this hashtag got the idea after her husband worked at her bookstore in Hood River, Oregon for two weeks while she was ill and then wrote an article, Notes from an ER Bookseller, which listed all the foolish questions people had asked him.

After reading the tweets I was surprised to learn that the words, "I'm looking for a book. I don't remember the title but the cover was blue," are said more frequently than I expected. I heard those words myself when I was working in a bookstore but that is not really what this post is about. It's about something else that happened to me while I worked there.

One afternoon I was behind the counter when a women walked up and ask if we had a certain book. I had just been asked the same question earlier so I told her we did not. She took offense at this and said in a loud, sneering voice, "Oh, so you know every book you have in the store?"

Before she made this statement the store had been filled with the of the sound of conversations going on between the other booksellers and customers.  Now I only heard the silence of people listening to what was going on at my end of the counter. Instead of explaining that she was the second person to ask me about that title, I firmly replied, "No, I only know the books we don't have."

I can't tell you why I said that, it didn't even make any sense but I could not take it back. I waited, mentally bracing myself for the explosion that was going to occur once she figured out that what I had said was really an affirmation of what she had asked me. I could tell by the tense silence surrounding me that everyone else in the store was waiting for the explosion too. There was a short pause and then she said brightly, "Oh...OK," and walked out the store. I watched her until she stepped out the doors and then turned to find everyone in the store staring at me with a "What the hell was that?" expression on their faces. I shrugged my shoulders and gave them a little smile. The next instant everyone was roaring with laughter.

Working with the public can be so challenging.