Prepoceros

At 3:30 this afternoon I was on my way home from a lesson when I thought, “While I’m out, maybe I should start* my Christmas shopping, seeing as how there’s less than a week left until Jesus Day.” So I stopped by the B&N down the street. I was looking for one particular (and sometimes hard to find) book, so it took me all of three minutes to ascertain that it wasn’t there. Bummer. It’s funny, though: it took me a good hour and half to find my way back out of the store. Somewhere along the way I came into possession of a completely different book and a mocha** frappuccino.

Next I tried Old Navy***, but they didn’t have the book either—imagine that! While I was there, I figured I might as well do some Christmas shopping for my family—the members of my family who wear size 8 women’s pants, that is.

Finally, I trekked the quarter-mile across the parking lot to Borders, which *did* have the book. You’d think, since they’re in the business of selling books, that Borders would make it easy for potential customers to find those books, but this is not the case. The Mathmatics*^V section is one side of a bookcase standing under a sign reading Business and Computer Technology. OF COURSE. Why didn’t I think to look there? Silly me.

Even when I was standing in front of the bookcase, there were no clues as to where my book might actually *be*. The section claimed to be in alphabetical order by author, but there was no such order. Not “a book or two out of place,” but NO ORDER AT ALL. It wasn’t clear whether these books had *ever* been in alphabetical order. I thought that maybe the signs were wrong, and that they were instead arranged by subject, but a quick glance proved this hypothesis false as well. The shelving was completely random. If I hadn’t known what the spine of my book looked like, I would’ve had to read every title in the section to discover that it wasn’t there.

According to the handy-dandy computer (the only thing I like about Borders) , the book was in the Philosophy/Linguistics^V mini-section, which turned out to be in the Religion section. Really? Okay, so maybe there wasn’t anywhere else to put it, but then you should call the section Religion & Philosophy. You know, in case someone were looking for a philosophy book. Better yet, how about a Humanities section? You have Literature and Social Sciences; how is Humanities (or Natural Sciences, for that matter) not an equally logical designation? Grumble. This only deepens my conviction that Barnes & Noble rules all and Borders is the seventh circle of Hell^V*.

In the end, I came out with two books, a tummy full of whipped cream, and…some amount of clothing^V**. Can I stop now? What’s that? No? I have to go out shopping again? Several more times? Aw, shucks.

———
* No presents bought, no cards sent, and only a couple people’s gifts even figured out. I should be a party planner.

** No more pumpkin spice! Humbug.

*** It’s been so long since I’ve been clothes shopping (in Houston) that I didn’t know the location of the nearest Old Navy and had to drive around until I saw one. I’ve lived here since February.

*^V I shit you not. On several different signs.

^V I’m going give Borders the benefit of the doubt and assume I misunderstood the computer. If someone really did think these were particularly similar…I don’t even know what to say to that.

^V* Oh, and the salesfolks’ job descriptions seemed to consist of little besides standing around the info desk flirting with each other. At first I thought it was a salesguy sucking up to two female customers, so I waited patiently in line…until one of the girls turned around and asked if she could help me. B&N employees don’t have time to flirt, as they’re busy doing things like shelving books properly.

^V** Note to self: This was on your Old Navy CREDIT CARD, which means you haven’t paid for it yet. You need to pay that shit off before the end of the month, like maybe TOMORROW.

Tags: miscellany

This entry was posted on Monday, December 19th, 2005 at 12:56 am and is filed under miscellany. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.