Today at Logos

I stopped and had lunch at Atria this morning.  Not my mother's best day, one of her "out of it" days and she planned to take a nap after I left and hope the dizziness would subside.

When I got to the store, Mike reported he had a busy, but low paying morning, probably because of the rain.  I had a busy but very high paying afternoon!  The rain had stopped and it was maybe the busiest day I've had yet.

Started out with a bald guy buying a copy of Aesop's fables.

Next a dad and his son came in and spent some time in the children's room, and then checking out mysteries, but ultimately didn't buy anything.

A guy in a chartreuse jacket and bilious green t-shirt (today was a chartreuse day, I discovered) spent time checking out the Adventure section and chose two books  He handed me a $100 bill, thinking it was $10.  When he saw it was $100, he left the book on the desk and took the bill to the bank across the street to get change.  I screwed up his charge 3 times because I kept forgetting I had to open the drawer to clear the previous charge.

A man wanted a copy of the PDR (Physicians Desk Reference) and then brought me a book of Spanish verbs an asked if we had a book on Spanish nouns (you mean like a DICTIONARY?),  He did find a dictionary an when I went to ring him up, I discovered the cash register tape was jammed, so I had to take the machine apart to fix it

Then a woman came in with 5 bargain books and started talking about the store policy re donations to charity.  I gathered she's quite an activist and talked about ratings of various charities, her fight against GMOs and other things.  She wandered around the store and eventually bought $52 worth of books, the 5 bargain books plus "Seeds of Destiny" (about GMOs), a book on butterflies, on a history of birds, a book of bird illustrations from 1550-1900, "Health Plants of the World, and a book about fairies.  She talked about elephant destruction and how we had wiped out the carrier pigeons.  She also recommended a video about cattle (which is why she doesn't eat beef), but I couldn't find it on Netflix.  Must have gotten the name wrong.  Very interesting lady.

Peter's friend brought in his usual books to donate.

An ambiguous gendered teen wearing chartreuse pants and Nikes cut like sandals sat at the table and read for awhile, then checked the craft section and then the section on the English language.  He/She didn't buy anything but his/her mother bought the "Book of Language" and a history book.

A man who sounded and looked like Raj from Big Bang Theory was looking for books on theater.  He bought 3 bargain books and one about Martha Graham.

A guy came in and bought one bargain book, paid for it, and on his way out saw a set of Encyclopedia Britannica that we've had for sale for months and bought it.  It was a little over $50.

Shortly after he left, a girl bought a 6 volume set  of Winston Churchill's very thick books about World War II for $43.

2 young women in hijabs bought, between them, 5 children's books, including a pop-up "Wizard of Oz" book.

My friend arrived at 4:15 and bought a Dick Francis (he said he'd read a lot of Francis a long time ago and was getting back into reading him.  He also bought a book on Nigerian art.

A guy bought a book of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons.  His credit card was unusual in that it only had one name, like Cher or Oprah or Elvis.  I'd never seen that before.

A couple spent a lot of time at the cook book section and ended up buying 2 cookbooks (one a bar guide) and 2 literature books in fancy binding, "Jane Eyre" and "Pride and Prejudice."

A girl came in wearing neat stockings which were black on the bottom and ended at her knees with the head of a cat, continuing on up with regular shaded stockings.  She bought a copy of "Hunger Games" and when she walked out, I saw that the back of her legs had the tails of the cats.  I just managed to get a photo.

A German woman came in all breathless and asked if we had a book about Native Americans which she had been looking for since 2003.  I directed her to the Native American section and I heard a shriek of delight when she found it, "Torch the Earth."  She positively glowed when she brought that and one other Native American book to the desk.  She said she lives in Germany and had only come to Davis for a month to help her friend on the university.  I swear she walked out on a cloud.

My last customer was a man who spent some time going through the cookbooks and told me his mouth was watering.  He ended up buying a book about Pasta.

Walt arrived at 6 and we went off to a new restaurant, Winds of Change, to have dinner to celebrate my birthday.