I was just told by a customer that I seem like a person who spends a lot of time around black people because I have the attitude of a correctional officer. Great. Now I've got THAT to chew on. The same customer asked for a book that I thought a person should read and I picked up "The Stranger" by Camus and handed it to him. He went to another part of the store and handed it to a complete stranger and told him to read it. After the first customer left, the man holding "The Stranger" brought the book back to me at the counter. I said, "You know, you really should read it." He agreed. And he bought it.

Earlier, neighborhood resident Christopher Hitchens was in with a teenage girl I assume is his daughter. I was put on edge by his presence, not because of any pathetic media-celebrity-worship, but because I suddenly worried about becoming fodder for one of his upcoming rants. Maybe "the decline of intellectualism in bookstores" or "you can't get decent customer service in DC anymore" or, perhaps, "white women who look like correctional officers". Any fear of an essay-inducing faux-paus on my part evaporated, however, when he handed me the spent peel from the banana he'd been eating. "Can you throw this away?" He said. "I don't want to litter." There's a big garbage can on the sidewalk outside the store; I think he had at least one other choice beyond handing me his compost or dropping it on the carpeting.

Well, that does it for bookstore tales; tonight is my last shift here. I put in my notice two weeks ago because, as entertaining as this place is, I just don't have enough time to work a low-paying part-time job just for the therapy. I'll miss my book-geek coworkers and the neighborhood nutcases who have given me so many evenings' entertainment. But, on to the next thing...