Today we had a bag sale (no it did not mean that Todd was selling me). If you're not familiar with the concept, it works like this:
We give customers a bag and they fill it with as many books as they can fit in the bag (from the designated sale area) for 5 bucks. It's a good way to get rid of inventory that is overtaking the store and the customers love it.

There was a 40- or 50-ish aged couple looking through the sale tables when the wife pipes up (not discreetly), "Oh look honey, women's erotica fiction." The husband nonchalantly answers, "That's worth the five dollars itself."

(I won't divulge if they bought the book *cough* *bought it* or not.)

From a valued bookstore customer in an email to me dated 3/16:
_____

Thank you for your correspondence. [she signed up for our newsletter and received the notification, apparently]. Your coffee was good this AM. Thank you. But your book exchange policy sucks. Sorry we couldn’t do business. If your policy should change to an even exchange of books, I will have a lot of good books to offer ( I realize you can’t do that). Until then, please remove me from your list.

Thanks for your kind hospitality when I came in this morning. I mean that sincerely and regret we couldn’t do business at this time.
_____

In an open response to this valued customer:

Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you for your input. If we should, at some time in the not-so-near future, decide to become a LIBRARY, loaning books for FREE, and receiving federal and state funds to cover our BILLS, you will be the first one I will contact. Until then, here's some information you may find useful:
http://www.sccl.lib.mi.us/

-Jackie Wilson, Owner
The Bookstore That Sucks But Still Has Good Coffee and Friendly Service

P.S. How do you think I pay for that wonderful free coffee you enjoyed so much, HMMMM?

_____

(At least I was nice when she was here. That should get me some kind of BS bonus points, right?).

DISCLAIMER: If you want to keep the pristine angelic picture of perfection that I am *ahem*, then I suggest you read no further...

OK..I warned you...

I've been sick with some weird sinus thing since last November. Here are some things that I've learned from it:

#5. I do not know how to spit out of a car window (I blame this on my older brother. I mean, how could you not teach me how to do this?)

#4. It is possible not to taste your food for months on end and really have no appetite, but still gain weight.

#3. It is possible to cough yourself into a wheezing, hacking, vomiting fit at approximately the same time every evening (who knew sinuses had a timetable?).

#2. There really is no end to the amount of phlegm your body can produce.

And the #1 thing that I've learned from my sinuses over the past 3 months:

It is possible to puke up your nose and then blow the food you puked up your nose out onto a tissue...

TADA!

(hey, I warned you not to read)

(and, yes, it does burn)

As I sit here, picking ice out of my hair, having been up since 4 a.m. clearing my very long, very winding driveway of the 10 inches of drifted snow in the dark, windy, sub-zero weather while my husband is in warm, sunny Texas, I can't help but think:

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY TO ME!

(and, I'm pretty sure my face has frostbite...)

If you are so ill that you have to wear a portable oxygen tank and can barely walk two feet without having to sit down, you might want to DISCONTINUE smoking. (It's a dead giveaway that you still smoke when your entire body reeks so badly of cigarette stench that it makes the people around you cough.)

HELLLOOOOOOO...YOU'RE ON A PORTABLE OXYGEN TANK!

I mean, this is just my opinion but...

As you already know, I get some pretty *ahem* "interesting" people in the bookstore. Here's the winner for today:

I'm SO OBVIOUSLY helping a customer (I'm standing at the counter talking to a woman with her purse out - need a bigger clue?) when this other woman bursts through the door and just short of shouting says "ARE YOU THE OWNER?" (in the middle of my sentence to the customer I was helping). I say, "I'll be right with you" and she walks around me still kind of talking to me, not talking to me, talking to the voices in her head? I don't know...

When I get to her she says, "You're not interested in Mary Kay are you?"
*sigh*
So many things wrong here. Where to start? Honey, let me help you out:

First of all, don't start out negatively. You gave me the perfect opportunity to say NO by leading me into "you're not interested..." (which of course I said NO). It's Selling 101.

Second of all, if you're selling Mary Kay, you might want to NOT wear a dirty, inside-out sweatshirt.

AND, you might want to wear SOME MAKE-UP.

AND, NOT act like you're schizophrenic.

I'm just sayin'...

*tsk*tsk* Mary Kay. I expected so much more of your sales people...

It gets much more interesting, but I'll spare you (except for telling you that she did offer to "blow up" some pictures she had of the 9/11 attack because "they would look really, really good in here.." HM. Wonder why I didn't think of that in the nice, soothing atmosphere of my bookstore...)

It's SO time for a Bahamavention....