Today at Logos

It was Peter again whom I relieved at Logos today. On my way into the store, I passed Bruce, without his hat, outside. I said hello and asked where his hat was and he showed it to me, squashed up with his newspaper, under his arm.  He followed me into the store a few minutes after Peter left and was looking for Oscar Wilde essays, but we couldn't find any.

Shortly after he left, a woman came in carrying an unopened Amazon package in her hand.  She stood at the desk, opened it, and without even looking at it, gave it to me as a donation.  It was Hillary Clinton's book, which she had gotten from Amazon for 1 cent.  She said it took them $3 to send it to her and she didn't want to pay to ship it back (she already had a copy), so she  thought she would just donate it.

A tall man with gold hoop earrings came in and spent a lot of time with cookbooks.  He was in the store for a very long time, and finally left without buying anything.

A guy came in with a box of donations, which included a Michael Connelly book I had not read, so that was my book to read today, and I brought it home with me.

A middle aged man in rumpled jeans, dirty shoes and a plaid shirt was walking around when his cell phone rang--the ring tone was a train whistle.  He bought an Ayn Rand, two books on science writing and "Hunger" by Kurt Hamsun, written in 1890, of which Amazon says, "this powerful, autobiographical novel recounting the abject poverty, hunger and despair of a young writer struggling to achieve self-discovery and its ultimate artistic expression. The book brilliantly probes the psychodynamics of alienation and obsession, painting an unforgettable portrait of a man driven by forces beyond his control to the edge of self-destruction" 

A young woman bought Khaled Hosseni's "A Thousand Splendid Suns" (book two after "The Kite Runner"), a book by Jhumpa Lahiri (I don't remember the name, but we talked about the author, since I had just finished her "The Lowlands," which the customer had also read), and another contemporary fiction book.

A mother and her two teenage children came in and Mom bought 3 science fiction books for the son (who wore a black shirt with a big red A on it.  I resisted the temptation to mention the Scarlet Letter). The daughter didn't appear interested in old books.

A guy wearing a cap which appeared to be made of aloha shirt material came in, wearing the cap backwards, showing the wide electric pink band at the back.  He had on a Van Halen t-shirt and orange cargo pants.  He didn't buy anything, but certainly was colorful.

A professor-type, with pressed jeans and a pressed sport shirt looked for a long time and finally bought 3 boos about home improvement and one on antiques.

A tall woman bought Kipling's "Kim" from the gift book section.  As I was recording her purchase, the next customer, a mustachioed man called my list of sales old fashioned. He bought 2 books on agriculture and 2 on the moon (I don't know if they were astrological or astronomy!).  He left but then came back with a book called "Don't Push the River," an account of the use of Gestalt therapy and the ways of Zen, and another agricultural themed book.

A Mom with a cute curly headed baby somewhere between a year and 18 months old spent time in the children's room and I loved hearing the two of them talking, but the didn't buy anything but he waved and said "bye bye" to be as they left.

A woman named Jan came in to pick up books being held for her--4 children's books.  She left and then came back to get a receipt since she was picking them up for someone else.

The next woman bought two kids' board books, so it was a busy day for the kids' room!

A gangly looking woman with damp curly hair bought a bargain book.

A man bought Woody Guthrie's "Bound for Glory."  He left the store and about 5 minutes later he returned saying "I think I left my pants here."  He went to the back of the store and sure enough, there were his pants...his biking shorts (he was wearing regular pants!)  I told him he was the very first person to ever leave their pants here.

My last customer was a zaftig women wearing a hat that first looked like a pith helmet but it was soft fabric, but a nice brim.  She bought two history type books, one of which was "Mary Queen of Scotts."  I told her  that as a kid I had read the queen's biography and was quite enamored of her. Then  said when I read books about Elizabeth, I learned Mary was kind of an ogre.  The woman agreed and gave some examples of things she had done to prisoners and then said "But look at all the deaths Hillary Clinton has caused...she's the real ogre."

I decided it was probably not a good idea to comment.

Then I came home to watch the Republican debate, which made me nauseous thinking that one of those men could possibly be our next president.  Also that it's still a YEAR from the nominations!

After that I watched the last Daily Show and had a good cry.

Busy day.