The phone rings. I pick it up, give my usual greeting. I'm juggling an armload of history books and watching more customers walk in the store with things to sell back. It's been crazy all day, and I'm stressed and sweaty and sore and I really need to get downstairs to check these history books because there are stacks of other things to be looked at and added up still waiting on the counter...and I'm really hoping that the customer on the phone just wants to know our hours or something because there's so much to do and I need to hurry up and do it...and do you know what the oh-so-pressing question is that this customer has? The question which was so important she had to call us up and make sure before she came all the way to our store?
"Do you carry John Grisham?"
...
Head + Desk = Satisfying Thud.
Yes ma'am, we carry John Grisham. In paperback and hardback, and in multiple copies. Or would you like a free collection of Grisham novels someone donated to the store this morning? Or perhaps the collection someone donated yesterday, which we've already thrown in the dumpster out back? (For that matter, check the dumpster down your street. Grisham novels have been known to spontaneously appear there.) We are, after all, a bookstore.
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