Recently, my brother wrote this great post on his blog about a visit he made to a bookstore.  I went to my favorite used book store on Saturday, and had adventures of my own that are worth relating:

As I walked in the door of the Barrow Bookstore, there was an intense young man talking to the staff person on duty – talking and talking and talking.  He was the kind of young man in his early twenties who thinks he’s really intelligent, but isn’t, and he kept going on about a friend of his [insert friend’s name here, for name-dropping purposes] who would really like to attend the author festival that had left its brochures at the bookstore and could he take a few brochures for his friend?  He was also filling out a request form for some Ezra Pound book that he was looking for, and took forever at the task, all the while expounding on Pound.

I might not have noticed him so much, but I had gone into the store with the express purpose of finding a copy of the Images of America book on Carlisle (Jim is leading a tour of Carlisle on Wednesday, and needed to do some research).  Because of the talkative young man, I had to hang out and wait, and of course I went over to the children’s section, something I was trying to avoid, and of course I immediately found two books I could not possibly live without.  Hoping to avoid further financial damage, I willed the young man to shut up and go away; it took a while for him to respond to my telepathic proddings, but eventually he went off to browse and I got to ask my Carlisle book question.

The store didn’t have the Carlisle book I was looking for, so the staff person (we’ll call her Adele) and I headed over to ring up the two books I had found.  I told Adele I was so very glad to find a copy of The Diamond in the Window, since it’s out of print and it’s a book that I like to use with my book groups, and then we chatted pleasantly about libraries until she saw my second book, Darkwing by Kenneth Oppel, and we bonded on our love for Kenneth Oppel’s work.

“You know,” said Adele, “We get a lot of review copies of children’s books here, and a whole bunch just came in – they’re on that cart over there…”  So of course I went over to look, and found two more books I just couldn’t live without, and as Adele was ringing those in the young man came over to make his exit.  He blabbered and blabbered and blabbered, and Adele gave me the look of a long-suffering shop clerk who just wants to get rid of an annoying customer and move on with her day.

“Do you have any business cards? Because I’d love to give a card to my friend X…” started the young man.  While he was still blathering, Adele handed him a stack of the store’s bookmarks, almost shutting him up.  But then he started going on about how he’d definitely be back, what a great store, he’d probably come back for those books in a few days, maybe on Tuesday, but he’d definitely be back, that book on Pound was terrific, what a great store…

Adele interrupted him with a pleasant smile as she nodded her head towards me and said, “She’s been shopping here for years.”  Another pleasant smile.  And the young man finally left, thank goodness, as another man came in to the store.

The second man, a pretentious snot in his early fifties, looked at Adele and said, “Oh, you’re still here?”  Adele looked confused, long-suffering, and surprised at the same time, as the pretentious man continued, “Last time I was here you sounded like you were ready to pack up and move on.”

“Oh, must have been having a bad d…” started Adele, but she couldn’t even finish her thought, because the man broke in.

“Guess whose birthday is today?  And no, it’s not mine!” he said.  “Sophia Peabody.  They’re having quite the big to-do up in Salem today.”

“Mmmmm…” Adele and I both started to comment on that, but the pretentious man talked over us.

“Though why anyone would celebrate her birthday is beyond me,” he said.  “What the heck did she ever do?”

“She married that gorgeous man…” said Adele.

“And she made him happy.”  I added.

“Exactly!!” said Adele, as the obnoxious man snorted in derision.  “Exactly!!!  Those two had a wonderfully happy marriage, even though they were very poor for most of it.”

And Adele and I shared a look that spoke volumes about women in our society, about fame, about what’s important in life, as the twitty old snot made some sort of scornful comment in the background.

And then I left, and drove to Fern’s Country Store in Carlisle, where I found the book that Jim needed; and then I went home to my terrific husband, who had spent his day digging four foot holes and mixing cement for the footers for our new front steps.