As read­ers we should be on our best behav­ior when enter­ing the book­store. It can be a very con­fus­ing, thor­oughly frus­trat­ing expe­ri­ence and so I’ve come up with a list for you that you will help you nav­i­gate the aisle and deal with sales clerks like an expert!

1. Don’t argue with the sales clerk when she/he says that the book isn’t due out for another month even though your online friends and the store across the street has the book in stock. Just politely leave and buy the book where you last saw it.

 

2. Do try to resist the urge to move books around and cor­rect the arrange­ment of books that are incor­rectly shelved. You are not an employee there. If you see a copy of Gail Dayton’s The Com­pass Rose shelved in romance instead of the SF/F shelf — just leave it there. They’ll move it even­tu­ally. This maybe their way of trick­ing romance read­ers into buy­ing roman­tic fan­tasy. [shrug]

3. Never ever face the cov­ers of books face for­ward on the shelf! Let them sit there with their spine out. The sales clerk prob­a­bly doesn’t want any­body find­ing them anyway.

 4. Do go to the counter with con­fi­dence with your pur­chases and ini­ti­ate small talk. Don’t feel intim­i­dated when the sales clerk looks at the cov­ers of your books with half-nekked peo­ple, grop­ing each other on them, star­ing just a lit­tle longer than your com­fort­able with. Just smile and say your buy­ing them for a friend.

5. And what­ever you do, resist and desist alpha­bet­iz­ing. It smacks of com­mon sense. Just turn around and leave Gel­lis in the P’s.

Also there’s one last thing I must say before I close this topic and that is.….

 

I saved 15% on my car insur­ance! YES!

Have a sense of humor! I just spent four hours at jury duty and didn’t get picked.