three bits from this week at the bookstore

There was an old lady who was lost in the parking lot and the bathroom at the same time. Or at least one of the two. I'd searched everywhere else. The family worried because she was "permanently addled" but laughed when the manager offered to call the police after ten minutes of looking. I guess the family was concerned that something bad had happened but weren't willing to face the potential mortification of explaining their former matriarch's mental instabilities to the cops. The women was found in the parking lot. I'm glad that I'm not currently a manager.

A young man with ripply muscles and a thin shirt (I've seen bigger men but not so well-defined so young) came in looking for Kierkegard's Adler book. He walked like he spent days at the gym and wanted everyone to know but it was okay because he was so flabbergastingly handsome. You know that kind of muscles that are so well shaped because the person even drinks too little water just so they'll look even more cut? Studly told me that the hardcover was over three dollars more but was worth it because it would look better on his shelf. I smiled halfway. He said, "I'm all about going big or going home." I'm still smiling some but part of it has turned into a strange shrinking violet wince that's painful for my face.

A med student who's a semi-regular palmed a twenty-dollar-bill quite well at the registers. She tucked it back out to pay for the books, wasn't trying to scam anyone, but had made the classic mistake of smiling happily right before she did her magic trick...Look at me, I can do prestidigitation...so it was a badly done trick but an amazingly dextrous move. I've seen a lot of magicians do worse. It's okay if she becomes a surgeon. Anyone that good at technique but lousy at showpersonship has to be able to cut people open with elan. Who cares if surgeons look good as long as they make perfect cuts...

(These snippets feel like bad Jonathan Carroll pastiches to me.)