Lessons for Shopping at a Bookstore...

Good evening my potential bookstore shoppers. Just a few guidelines for all you happy, book seeking folks for your next visit- some helpful tips to keep in mind....
1. Do not get mad at me for a company policy. I am a lowly bookseller, barely paid minimum wage, and while I have an above average knowledge about books and where to find them, I can do NOTHING to change the fact that we can't take your credit card information over the phone. In fact, you shouldn't want me to- I am, after all, barely paid minimum wage. And I want to go to the mall, badly.
2. If you have never touched, opened, looked, or read a book before in your life, which does not include the trashy magazine about Robert Pattinson or that manga crap that is more pictures than words, then please choose somewhere else to frequent. We have nothing to offer you and while I am not allowed to growl at you and hurl nasty names for fear of losing my job, if you ask me if we "Carry Hamlet in English" I might actually resort to shooting you in the kneecaps. Repeatedly.
3. Magazines do not count as literature. So if the only reason you come to a bookstore is to pick up the latest issue of Pop Culture or to browse through nine hundred cooking magazines and then leave them in a pile on the bench, please watch your backside on your way out as we will very likely be trying to cause you permanent damage.
4. Please remember that those moderately odd people not allowed to wear jeans or comfortable shoes standing under the "customer service" sign are NOT there to shop for you- we are there to assist you in trying to decifer the empty depths of your useless brain: "the book with the yellow cover" or the book you "heard on NPR this morning" or the latest Oprah Book Club read; please remember your manners and say please and thank you and DO NOT give us a disdainful look when you ask for the most obscure book on the planet that had a first print run of ten and came from a one bedroom apartment somewhere in the middle of farm country USA because in case you happen to forget, we are a BOOKSTORE but above all we are a BUSINESS which needs to make a profit- we make money off of Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer and Stephen King, though most of us wish we didn't. So when you ask for snowflake books, do not be surprised when we do not have them. NOBODY has them.
5. Do not hint that you have no way to get to the bookstore. Do not even hint that it is a long drive from your "mountain house" to your nearest bookstore. You were the idiot who decided it would be nice to buy a house up on a mountain where not even the snow plows or the postman will go; do not expect us to go out of our way to accomodate you. You chose to complicate your life.
6. WE ARE NOT YOUR THERAPIST. I do not care, nor do any of my coworkers care, why you need the book on codependency or why this book might save the relationship you've been having for the past 15 months that is now crumbling down around your ears and if only she'd get her act together and realize you were there for her and you love her... WE DO NOT CARE. We are not paid enough, period, and we certainly are not paid enough to listen to you babble on and on about your pathetic love life. Sign up for eharmony already.
7. Thomas the train is NOT in the children's department for you to deposit your child at and then walk away. WE ARE NOT YOUR BABYSITTERS. We will not keep an eye on your child and when you ask us where they went, do not expect us to know. We don't care where your child went, just that they don't make an even bigger mess of the bookshelves than they already have which you will not pick up because really, why should you, right? It is your child- put them on a leash if you have to but DO NOT leave them in the children's department alone. Ever. We might start selling them on the black market, for extra money of course.
8. If you are dumb enough to think vampires are cool, then whatever, you're an idiot and the world is full of people exactly like you. Luckily, we will happily take your money and sell you drivel written by an undereducated housewife because your wasted money will go into my paycheck; which I can then use to buy something worthy of the paper its printed on and at least I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that I'm smarter than you in every conceivable way possible.
9. Do not call us back, after we have told you that the book is not in stock or that we couldn't find it, and ask us to check again. We are NOT stupid, although even bookstores are not immune to the idiocy that now runs heavy in our society; we DID look on the shelf, we DID check the back room, we DID check all the tables and walls and floor displays and yes, even the WINDOWS by God and when we tell you we do not have it, we are not being lazy and lying to you- sometimes, even a big old bookstore doesn't have everything all the time.
10. And finally, please remember that when we give the fifteen, then ten, then five minute warning before closing, this is not a sign that you should go and purchase a grande extra frap with whip cream and a dose of vanilla and then make your way back to the chairs with your nineteen paperbacks and settle in. Those warnings, delivered in a nice and pleasant voice, really mask our true meaning which is, "we've dealt with your stupidity, your lack of manners, and your messes long enough today. We are tired because we are people too with homes and families and dogs and while we often hate our lives more than the average citizen, sometimes we like to go home too. So get the hell out of our bookstore and stop touching things."

Now that you have a few guidelines, please enjoy your day and your visit to your local bookstore!