So, I was workin' hard for the minimum wage in the bookstore today and I come around the corner to whoaaaaaaa...... Blocking the entire hallway and my passage back to the rest of the bookstore, register, and cart full of books to shelve is this woman. Oversized. On a motorized wheelchair type scooter contraption. Complete with a basket in the front. She then proceeds to completely monopolize my time by regaling me with the details of some registry of books or bookstores online and some blog she has on the Democrat's website and how great it would be to put this bookstore on it with pictures and she's sure it would be the best thing for us since the invention of the frikkin' printing press.
But of course I just stand there, smiling sweetly, agreeing with everything she says and playing dumb to everything else. Looking, hoping, wishing, fervently seeking an escape route. Can I squeeze around her? Hmmmm, fat chance. Can I remind her I actually have a job to do and it doesn't involve listening to her? Hmmmm, unlikely. Would God please send an angel to get me out of this?!? I'm almost positive someone's waiting at the counter, but hell! I can't see around her to get to the end of the hall to see if someone's there! Ack!
Finally a lady leans back and spies me in the hall and gives me the nod. The nod that means she's read to check out and where the hoodlum have I been hiding? Thankfully, I have a valid excuse now to say "um, I need to go." Thinking this woman will have the courtesy to back up and let me pass... I kinda stand there. She doesn't move. So I start for her.... She says "oh, can you get by me?" Gladly, I think. And like jello through a straw I squeeeeeze through there, knocking a few things off the shelf.
Then, then, THEN! She's in the children's room and shouts out to me "do you count the puzzle pieces?" I'm thinking that two customers are in there and someone's shouting to their hard of hearing friend. It is 'senior day' after all and a few senior citizens of the Belltone persuasion have already passed through the store. So I ignore it. A customer comes up to the counter, ready to check out and she's still shouting out... Now, let me take a moment to say that I do wear a NAME tag which she had about fifteen mintues to examine when she had me trapped in the hallway. OR she could have said "excuse me, miss?" Or "hey you, employee, commere" Or, she could have even wheeled herself on over to me! I mean, it's not like she had to WALK anywhere. So, I'm shelving books and ringing up customers and this lady just sits there yelling "do you count the puzzle pieces?" Finally I find a nickel and buy a clue, realize she's shouting at me and go in there to play dumb and say "pardon me?" She then repeats the same question at the same volume, regardless of the fact I'm standing right there... and I say "no. we sell them as is." Thus, while she's got me in her grasp, she begins to regale me with ANOTHER story about some children's book she's looking for (goodluck, lady), how much she loves children's books and then her favorite book is some creepy Hieronymus Bosch artwork done to poetry... If you know Bosch, you know that he's an artist from the 1500's who did some crazy-sick art. It was revolutionary for the time, but that shizz is scary! It doesn't belong in a CHILDREN's book! Exposure to that stuff will make one messed-up kid. Maybe that's what happened to her. Hmmmmm, it's all coming together now....
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