'The Customer is Always Right'

Author: Lucas Kavner

Yes, it's true. School has begun. Hopefully, you've already strapped on your knapsacks, pumped up your bikes, attached your Nalgene (Nalgene is a registered trademark of Nalgene, Inc.) and buckled down your...self.

However, even though school has indeed begun, that does not mean one should neglect one's summer experiences. Some of you may have saved the African Rhino from attacking the city of Guam and others may have worked at Shaw's. Some of you may have picked blueberries with Chelsea Clinton while constructing bamboo flutes for the Hare Krishna and others of you may have mowed lawns. It's all relative.

For me, salvation came from a little bitty huge conglomerate called Barnes and Noble - a company that prides itself on fine community relations, adult pornography behind the counter and some books. Bookselling used to be a tricky business (according to the employee manual), but these days bookselling comes down to putting colorful things up front so people will buy them. As one of my managers at my Frisco, Texas, Barnes and Noble store explained, "The neon colored books sell real well!" I grew to understand that I could put any colorful book near the front of the store and sales would go through the roof.

This once again proves my theory that colors are neat and fun.

Over the summer I experienced exchanges with a diverse array of customers. One of them argued that there should only be one section on religion and we shouldn't separate Christianity from Eastern religions because "they're basically all the same." I briefly considered asking if he was, in fact, Satan, but then I decided to rethink my actions. Another customer was absolutely positive that Shakespeare wrote a play called "Midsummer's Dream of the Night." I then kindly corrected her. She responded with, "The customer's always right." After we spent a little while searching for the play that doesn't exist, she huffed and settled with three copies of Hillary Clinton's memoir and two Godiva Chocolate Bars.

But my favorite customer had a whole revolution he wanted to undertake.

"Excuse me," he said.

"How can I help you?" I asked.

"I noticed that you have yer gay magazines interspersed with the rest of the magazines," he told me.

"Yes, we put men's and women's magazines in the respective sections-"

"-I noticed. I just don't want my (expletive) kids getting their (expletive) hands on those (expletive) magazines," he interrupted.

Getting their hands on them?

I got pretty agitated at this point. Did he think that some confused little boy would be perusing the various sections of the magazine rack, come across a completely non-pornographic magazine discussing gay issues, and then turn gay himself? God knows when I read "Cat Fancy," I immediately feel the intense need to go out and purchase 22 fine Siamese cats and feed them nutritious food based solely on the adorable kitten gracing the cover.

What's the trend here? Well, all of these aforementioned customers had the coveted "Reader's Advantage Card" that can be purchased annually and saves you 10 percent on everything in the store! This leads me to believe that readers clearly do not have any so-called "advantage." Reading books has apparently made people just as desensitized to their own stupidity as a video game or, say, the Anna Nicole Smith Show with a side of coleslaw and Arnold Schwarzenegger's "say no to violence" speech.

On the last day of work, we are all standing around trying to look as if we were doing something remotely worthwhile, and two policemen came into the store and handcuffed one of the assistant managers. Apparently this nice lady had extorted a lot of money from Barnes and Noble by hiring somebody to return merchandise to the store so she could capitalize and take some of the money herself. It really put the cherry on top of an already delicious retail sundae. So next time you pick up a book for a class, for pleasure, or with the intention of burning it, you should look at yourself in the mirror and ask: "How stupid am I, really?" If you answer yourself with: "Very," then I feel pity for you and your family.

Oh, and by the way, what's up with all the bees outside of Proctor?