A Summary of Strange Customers

Although working at a bookstore introduces me to plenty of lovely human beings, from happy families to social intellectuals, I've seen my fair share of quirky customers. Their eccentricities are not always negative, but there are certainly things keeping me on my toes.

1) The other day I was confronted with a very short bald man who was obviously mentally disabled in some way. He decided this day that he would ask for a book by Plato, and that only -I- should be the one to help him. I have nothing against the mentally ill, but I do have personal levels of comfort that were breached each time he called me "sweetheart" and took his sweet time explaining his search. He apparently wanted a book called either "deseartes" or "gnosis" or something like that (his mumbled speech made him quite hard to understand and he couldn't spell it for me). Now, as far as I know, Plato wrote a very small number of books, none of which had names like that at all. So, I tried my best to reassure him that if there was a book by that name, we certainly didn't carry it. It was a rather distressing conversation, especially when he wouldn't let me leave to help other customers. It was to my good fortune that a friendly coworker of mine had seen my situation and decided to rescue me with an intercom page to the opposite side of the floor. Finally free, I hunkered down in the "9-12 fiction" section and began systematically alphabetizing the bottom shelves. There is no better place to hide than the children's section.

2) This one I've only heard about through stories. Apparently, some years ago, a woman came in claiming to be from a library in the city. As per usual, she was outfitted with a cart and many baskets. Off she went, filling them to the top, wandering around through the sections and asking employees what books they recommended. Once her baskets were overflowing with books, she would disappear... wander out of the store and leave the cart in the middle of the aisles. Obviously, this was quite distressing to the staff... so many re-sorts! Weeks past without occasion, until again this woman showed up. The same thing happened-- baskets filled with books lost their so called "librarian". All very strange, nobody knew quite what to do. A week later, it happened again... however this time, the store received a call. "Have you seen a small Asian woman who thinks she's a librarian?" a man asked.
"Uh, yes, she's upstairs..."
"Don't let her leave, she's a patient at the CAMH and we're coming to collect her"
Soon enough, white men in suits filed through the doors and escorted the poor women away.

3) I work quite a few places, being the versatile employee you have to be when in a store this big. However, my specialty is the cookbook section. Now, I've had two encounters there that have particularly challenged me. One, a regular, a food critic who keeps a constantly updated cookbook collection and must surely have every cookbook we do and more. When she comes in she asks "what do you have that I haven't seen" and it is a great challenge to pick out the newest or most obscure books we have. She, however, is a reasonably pleasant woman who makes her recommendations without great personal judgment. Recently, however, I received another type of customer. A four-star cook searching for books not only for herself, but for her four-star cook friends. Not only was she picky, but she was also one of the most judgmental people I have come across. Almost nothing really suited her. I did that thing everyone does when confronted with opinionated people when they are being paid to serve: I nodded and agreed with everything she said, treading quite carefully when adding my suggestions. She was so picky that the next day I was personally thanked by the manager of the store for dealing with her.

4) One of the most delightfully eccentric customers I've had was this old British man, who, as I was greeting at the top of the escalators, proceeded to pick his way through the Eyewitness book series we keep on display and discuss with me the innovations in deep ocean exploration the world has been experiencing in recent decades. We had an interesting conversation about deep ocean heat vents and the strange creatures that have been discovered there. From submarines to plankton, we pretty much covered the basics of amazing undersea advances and discoveries. He also looked like Santa Claus, which was pleasant.

5) Another woman I've only heard about, although she did happen to be in the store one day that I was working: the "prosecutor". This woman has a very strong conviction that every white male is a murderer. In fact, she is so stubborn about this that she makes sure to yell at every white male that passes her "YOU MURDERER!" It happened once that my coworker accidentally made eye contact with her across the room, and she yelled for about 5 minutes how he better stay where he was and not come anywhere close. She made sure that every woman working on the top floor would leave to go home before ten, because after that "the murderers come out". She has, apparently, been in the store before doing the same thing. It seems with practice she has learned that after these outbursts she should escort herself out of the store, as it seemed one of the store policies.

There are a great many more customers that have made my shifts a bit more interesting than expected, but I'll save those for later.

The wonders of camoflage.

As a child, I was fascinated with animals of all varieties, but I was especially enamored with those who displayed unusual adaptive abilities. Animals with brightly coloured poison warnings, strange carnivorous jungle flowers that attract flies by producing the smell of rotten meat, fish that create their own light. I was amazed as a child, and I'm just as amazed now.