One of the highlights of working retail during the holiday season is the receipt of customer-bestowed nuggets of wisdom. Here are a few that were too good to keep to myself.
Customer: Do you have that book about how to be beautiful? By the really famous author? Like, maybe, in your fashion section?
Me: Uh...Zadie Smith's On Beauty is actually a novel. She's quite lovely, but I don't think she includes any helpful hints.
[Via my manager]
Customer: So...Ulysses. Would you recommend that for a beach read?
Customer [Holding up a copy of 4000 Easy Wiccan Spells]: Is there a money-back guarantee on this? If I can't do them?
Me: Well, we do have a very generous return policy.
Customer: I was looking in the Poetry section, and I can't find anything by Ovid
Me: Oh, we shelve Ovid in the Classical Studies section. I can show you.
Customer: Why in the hell would you do a dumbass thing like that?
Me: Because...Ovid...was...a classical...poet.
Customer: Not the Ovid I'M looking for!
Me [internal monologue]: Oh, right, you must mean STANLEY Ovid. From Muskegon. My mistake!
Customer: Did you know that George Sand and George Eliot were married?
Customer's Friend: Really?!
Customer: Yeah. One of them was a woman, but I can never remember which.
and Evelyn Waugh had a cat named "Spot"
Posted by: | December 09, 2005 at 12:20 PM
"I'm looking for a book recommended by my cousin's sister's boyfriend's niece a year ago. I don't know what it's called or what it's about or who it's by, but it's about this big, and it's blue."
Or . . .
Customer: Where's your non-fiction section?
Me: See the fiction section?
Customer: Yeah.
Me: Everywhere else.
Posted by: Jenny | December 09, 2005 at 05:56 PM