i'm a combination of enchanted and annoyed. *or* a study of the would-be well-read.

There's a guy who stops by the store almost every day while walking his husky, Chekhov. We keep dog biscuits behind the counter and I give Chekhov one whenever he comes in. He's a huge animal, really. Like a pony with perkier ears. Every time I give him a biscuit, his owner (whose name I've never learned) tells me, "He's gentle. He'd never bite." Because I act a little intimidated. And every time, Chekhov nips me a little. Not hard, just enough to make me react. So today I held my hand out flat and let him eat off of it. Which led to a hand full of dog spit.

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There are these two guys that come in pretty frequently that I'm pretty sure have some form of OCD. Because they rearrange all the books we have stacked on the "to be shelved" table. You wouldn't think it would matter, and obviously they don't, but half the books on that table haven't been priced yet. The other day, one of these two guys came in and bought one of the books from the 99¢ racks we keep outside. He paid for it entirely with nickels.

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An older guy named Phil comes in just about every Sunday. He wears dark sweaters with crisp-collared shirts underneath. His behavior has an uncanny way of being both shocking and endearing. One minute he's saying something completely offensive, like defending Japanese interment camps. Then he'll ask me my opinion of Pride and Prejudice, the question I've been wanting to answer since I first thought about working in a bookstore.

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For some reason, people think when they only state the subject of their question bookstore employees can somehow formulate their thoughts. Example: "birds and butterflies." They don't even bother with the voice intonation of asking a question. This is my fantasy conversation:
Customer: "Photography."
Me:"Frogs."
"Excuse me?"
"Pickles."