Today at Logos

It was the slowest day I'd ever had at Logos.

I arrived early to relieve Sandy so she could get to an appointment.   We didn't have time to chat, so I didn't know how her part of the day had gone, but when I looked at the log sheet, she had only had three sales all morning.   When someone came to relieve me at the end of the day, I think I had only made six sales, and one of those was to myself.  It's the first week the students are back at UC Davis and I suspect they are busy settling in and getting started in classes and it's not the time to go book shopping.

Nevertheless, I did have a number of customers in the store, though most did not buy anything.

There was a chubby man wearing a green shirt with a symbol on it that I know I've seen Sheldon wear on The Big Bang Theory, but I can't remember what it stands for.  i thought it was a Greek letter, but checking the Greek alphabet, it is not.  He was with a woman wearing a huge floppy hat--the kind Scarlet O'Hara wore at Tara--and carrying a Trader Joe's bag.  

He bought a photo album of Paris which was on the bargain book shelf and I'm sorry I didn't see it first.  We talked while I was ringing up his purchase and he was tellling me about the Seed Valut in St. Petersburg, which he hopes some day to visit.  Wikipedia talks about seed banks

A seed bank (also seedbank or seeds bank) stores seeds as a source for planting in case seed reserves elsewhere are destroyed. It is a type of gene bank. The seeds stored may be food crops, or those of rare species to protect biodiversity. The reasons for storing seeds may be varied. In the case of food crops, many useful plants that were developed over centuries are now no longer used for commercial agricultural production and are becoming rare. Storing seeds also guards against catastrophic events like natural disasters, outbreaks of disease, or war. Unlike seed libraries or seed swaps that encourage frequent reuse and sharing of seeds, seed banks are not typically open to the public.

A group of botanists apparently locked themselves inside the seed vault in St. Petersburg during the siege of Leningrad to prevent the people from breaking into the vault and eating the seeds because they were starving.  My customer told me that the botanists who saved the seed bank did, themselves, starve to death rather than eat the seeds.

A girl bought two Hardy Boys books, the combined price of which was $4.  When I rang the sale up I wondered if the tax rate had gone up last week because the cash register always calculates the tax and a $4 purchase has always been $4.32, but today it was $4.34.

An interesting woman with dark pink hair came in.  She was wearing a dress I first thought was velveteen, but it  was more a t-shirt material, but it was black and the skirt was short in front and long--to her ankles--in the back.   It had some kind of logo on it.  She wore a black backpack with emerald green accents and had black boots and a big wooden cow's head on a cord around her neck.   She had the look of maybe one of the "little people" of Ireland.   That she was looking through the fantasy section completed the image I had of her.

Tom, a friend of Peter's brought in his usual collection of science books for Peter.  He was telling me he's going to Copenhagen next week for a genetics meeting.

Sandy returned to retrieve the jacket she'd left draped over the chair.  She saw that I was reading my new Judy Garland book and she gasped.   Apparently she was as big a Judy Garland fan as I was and even saw her in concert at Madison Square Garden once.  Something else for us to talk about the next time I relieve her!

A girl came in asking if we had any Shakespeare and spent time looking through what we have, but didn't buy anything.  She was followed by a girl who wanted to know if we sold text books, which we do not.  She was very pretty and was wearing a black jump suit with a diapanous blue thing over it, which resembled the dress of the "little person" earlier.

The quickest sale was a man who strode purposefully from the door to the children's room and came out with a copy of "Holes," which he purchased ($2.17) and then strode back out again.  At the door, though, he turned and looked back and called out "thank you" before taking off on his bicycle, which was one of those with tiny wheels and a large frame that sat him about 3 feet above the wheels.

Two very tall people came in, a young woman and an old man who was either her father or grandfather.  They did a quick walk around the store and left, but I heard him say to her that it was a very nice store.

Next a trio came in, a mom with a tiny baby in a stroller along with what was probably Grandma.  They looked around briefly until the baby started getting fussy and then left.

Another tall guy came in holding a list and pointed to an obscure Sociology book and asked if we had it.  We ddn't.

The antiquarian is back!  I hadn't seen him in weeks, but he bounded into the shop again, his usual ebullient self.  When I mentioned that he hadn't been around, he said it was because it was summer and that things are always boring in summer (I gathered he had some connection with the university).  He was happy to find two books he wanted in our oldbook section.

Two barrel-chested young men arrived, one wearing a Texas chainsaw massacre t-shirt.  They were quite loquacious and talking over the bookcases aboput some woman, while they browsed.  The Chainsaw Massacre guy bought a big book of National Geographic issues and the other guy bought "The Book of Sex."

My friend showed up at 4:48 and bought 3 books, two bargain book and another one I've forgotten.  We talked about our upcoming trip to Santa Barbara and whether I'd see him next week or not.

A rumpled grey bearded unkempt man wearing a very large t-shirt, much too large for him and hanging to his knees was looking at the old books.  When he turned in my direction, he has the look of a street person.  He carried a ratty looking canvas bag, but his shoes were in good condition, though too large for his feet.   He didn't stay long.

A tall distinguished gentleman was disappointed that we had no books about baseball.

Two Asian women, one wearing a baseball cap with the straight brim like Tim Lincecum wears backwards on her head.  She and her friend checked fantasy,   but didn't buy anything.

A man with a Suffolk University shirt wanted a bathroom and I told him we didn't have a public restroom.  He was with a woman who wanted cookbooks, but neither of them bought anything.

And then it was over for the day.  If we made $100 total I will be very surprised, thought my purchase of two books about wine and wine growing that I bought for our Mexican daughter helped bring the total up a bit.