I worked in bookstores forever. Here are some 100% true stories from holiday season.
Guy comes in, says his daughter needs a book called The Shrunken White Elephants of Style. We can’t find anything by that title. He doesn’t know the author.
Guy comes in, says his daughter needs a book called The Shrunken White Elephants of Style. We can’t find anything by that title. He doesn’t know the author.
He’s SURE he got the title right, and says we’re idiots because apparently all book people know it. It’s for writers. Then it dawned on me - and I was right. This is what he wanted. 
Before we called them “Karens”, they threatened to get me fired because I was out of the hot William Wegman or Anne Geddes books on 12/22. Because there’s NOTHING a Karen loves more than a dog in people clothes or an infant in a flower pot. The fury! They NEED that book NOW!
Biohazards I Have Found in the Bookstore:
- Adult human tooth, w/flesh attached (ladies room floor)
- Human feces (in the aisle)
- Soiled baby diapers under cushions in the Children's Dept, behind books in stacks, handed over at checkout (“You have a trashcan back there?”)
- Adult human tooth, w/flesh attached (ladies room floor)
- Human feces (in the aisle)
- Soiled baby diapers under cushions in the Children's Dept, behind books in stacks, handed over at checkout (“You have a trashcan back there?”)
When training newbies in downtown Seattle, we had to tell them not to handle the trash in the bathroom without great care – SO MANY junkies left their works in there. We were forever cleaning the telltale fine sprays of blood from the stall walls
You know the big mascot costumes? For kid book characters? I have worn them ALL. In there huffing the combo of Febreeze/bookseller sweat, kids punching at you. THEN you gotta get dressed again and work the info desk. So gross.
I was working in bookstores when Oprah first started her book club, and it was a HUGE big deal. I can’t tell you how many times people would come in to get a copy of the latest the day their discussion group, with no intention of reading it.
They’d say “just tell me what it’s about!” so they could fake like they read it at the wine lady book group. I’m not proud of this, but I started telling them totally fabricated, wildly inaccurate versions of the books
Because it was hilarious to me to picture them trying to save face when bringing up the symbolism of The Quickening in Angela’s Ashes, or how the protagonist in Deep End of the Ocean struggled with telekinesis
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