Customer: “Can you help me find to “Frankenstein” trilogy by James Patterson?”

Me: “Sir, I think maybe you mean Dean Koontz.”

Customer: “No. Patterson wrote it.”

Me: “OK, one moment, let me get that for you.”

(I return with the first book of Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein trilogy).)

Me: “Is this what you wanted?”

Customer: “Yeah. That’s the one. I need the fourth book in the trilogy.”

Me: “I believe there are only three books in the trilogy.”

Customer: “No, I read online. There are four.”

Me: “Alright. One minute, please.”

(I return with the third book in the trilogy.)

Me: “Is this what you needed?”

Customer: “Yeah. That’s it. Have you read these?”

Me: “Yes I have. I thought they were a wonderful re-imagining of Mary Shelley. I really enjoyed Koontz’s ideas about the monster.”

Customer: “Yeah but he didn’t even put Frankenstein in the books. Just some scientist guy. What kind of a name is Victor anyway?”

Related:
Re-Vamping Dracula

Customer: “Hey, can you help me find this book?”

Me: “Sure.”

(He holds up a piece of paper with the title and author of a book on it. I find it on the shelves and hand it to him.)

Customer: “Thanks! How’d you do that so fast?”

Me: “Well, I’ve worked here awhile, and the books are all in alphabetical order by author’s name.”

Customer: “What do you mean?”

Me: “Alphabetical order. Like the alphabet song? You know, A’s before B’s?”

(He looks confused, but then widens his eyes.)

Customer: “The letters actually go in that order? I thought that song was just to remember them all!”

Me: “Good afternoon, [bookstore]!”

Caller: “Hi, I have to do a project where I read to kids and they respond. Do you have that?”

Me: “You need a book to read to them? Sure! We have plenty of children’s books.”

Caller: “No, I need to read to kids and have them respond.”

Me: “Right, we have plenty of books you could chose from to read to them.”

Caller: “No, I need to read to kids and have them respond.”

Me: “So what exactly is it that you need from us?”

Caller: “Can I do that there?”

Me: “Well, we don’t provide the children.”

Caller: *disappointed* “Oh, okay. Bye.”

Me: “Hi, how can I help you today?”

Customer: “I’m going on a 25 hour plane ride, and I was just trying to find something to read.”

Me: “Okay, what kind of books do you read?”

Customer: “Young adult stuff, like romance stuff.  OH!  Or something with vampires.”

(I walk her over to the young adult section.  And show her a series with vampires. There are six books in the series and each book is quite small–not even 200 pages.)

Me: “Well, you might like this series. They’re easy books to read, but really good. I’ve read them.”

Customer: *flips through book* “It seems boring.”

Me: “Oh. Well, I can assure you it’s not.  They are quite action-packed.”

Customer: “I mean it looks wordy. Like, there’s a lot of words in it.”

Me: “Well, yeah…most books have words in them.”

Customer: “Hmm…I’ll think about it.”

(She ended up buying 3 teen magazines.)

Customer: “Excuse me, I have an important question.”

Me: “Sure, what can I help you with?”

Customer: “You know a lot about the Bible, right?”

Me: “Well, not everything entirely.”

Customer: “Okay. Can you tell me what part of the Bible does Narnia come in?”