Customer: “I’m looking for a book; it’s blue.”

I look around to see if I am being pranked but see no evidence of this.

Me: “Uh… okay. Do you have a title, author, fiction or non-fiction?”

Customer: “It’s [Title], by [Author], and it’s a romantic fantasy about a time traveler set during the Renaissance period.”

Me: “That… is everything I needed! Are you having trouble finding the book?”

Customer: “Of course not. I found it straight away.”

Me: “Then what can I do to help, ma’am?”

Customer: “Are you not listening? I want it to be blue! The only cover you have is purple!”

Me: “I’m afraid that the book only comes in one color, ma’am.”

Customer: “Well, I want it in blue! It won’t go with my bookshelf if it’s purple.”

Me: “I can’t make it blue for you, ma’am.”

Customer: *Storming out* “Ugh… [Bookstore Chain] will have it in blue!”

A coworker has been helping a customer for an unusually long time. They’re finally done with what seemed like a lot of questions, and they just collapse behind the counter for a moment.

Coworker: “You know what? I’m going to write a book and call it It’s Blue.”

Me: “Let me guess, for all the customers who come in saying, ‘I’m looking for a book; it’s blue.’?”

Coworker: “I’d sell millions!”

Thirty years ago, I was working in a pretty well-known American bookstore in Paris. A customer comes in one day looking for a specific book. So far, nothing out of the ordinary.

Me: “What’s the name of the book?”

Customer: “I can’t remember.”

Me: “What’s it about?”

Customer: “I just remember the colour of the cover: white and red. It talks about politics, but for the life of me, I cannot remember the name of the author!”

We found the book.

It was “Primary Colors”… by Anonymous.

We have a small LGBT section in our bookstore. A show about a gay teen romance (“Heartstopper”) is exploding in popularity on Netflix at the moment, so we’re cashing in by stocking the series of graphic novels the show is based on. They’re selling quite well, but as to be expected, there is always that one customer…

Customer: “Do you know what these books are about?! The ladies at my church told me you were selling these, but I simply had to see it for myself!”

Me: *Not giving a f**** “The ladies at your church have good taste! It’s a great book series!”

Customer: “No! It’s about [gay slurs], and what is worse, it’s made to look like a comic so it can turn children gay! You need to remove them, now!”

I call the manager over, who tries to speak to the woman in a calming and polite manner. The customer is still loud enough for me to hear, however.

Customer: “No! You will be removing these books, and if you have any concern for America, you will burn them!”

My manager speaks.

Customer: “Unacceptable! I will be letting everyone at the church know how much disrespect you show for the Lord and for America!”

The customer storms out, and the manager lets me know she needs a moment. I finish my morning and I go to lunch. I come back and find the manager in a flurry of activity, stocking books in our prime advertising spot near the entrance.

Me: “What are you doing?”

Manager: “That customer told me to take the Heartstopper books down, so I did. She never said anything about putting them back up somewhere else.”

I notice that our “newer” LGBT book section has now doubled in size, with a much wider selection of books in it than before. 

Manager: “So, I’m stocking every single LGBT book I can find! This place will be a f****** Pride parade in book form by the time I’m done!”

Every copy of “Heartstopper” we have is now on the shelf, along with the graphic novels dedicated to canonically LGBT superheroes. Books about Harvey Milk and a gay history of the USA share space with studies of gay art in ancient cultures.

By the next week, [Manager] has ordered in even more titles, and even though we can’t keep the new-and-improved LGBT section by the entrance for much longer, it still finds a new area in a prime spot and manages to keep it at its improved size.

A few weeks later, the manager tells me in passing:

Manager: “If they complain again, I will tell them that every complaint gets an extra shelf space added to the LGBT section.”

I have since left the store, but the section is still there and healthy every time I go in to browse the books.

Also, that customer made me look into — and buy — every volume of “Heartstopper”! Thanks for the recommendation, lady!

I work at a university textbook store. Our return policy on textbooks is super strict; we take returns on books for the first week of class only. The second Tuesday of class, no more, with the exception of a student dropping a class or exchanging a wrong book for the correct one.

A student comes in over a month after classes have started and slams a textbook on the counter.

Student: “I want to return this.”

Me: “Have you dropped the class, or is it the wrong book?”

Student: “No and no.”

Me: “Our return policy means that you can’t return it.”

Student: “But I got a cheaper copy online!”

Me: “That’s the exact reason why we have our return policy in place.”

Student: “But a week isn’t enough time to get books in from Amazon!”

Me: “We’re not a library. It’s not our responsibility to lend you books.”

Student: “You will do a return!”

Me: “No.”

Student: “You will be receiving a call from my mother.”

Me: “Best call her immediately then, so that she can explain why her nineteen-year-old son needs her to fight his battles.”

We never got the call.