It's Sunday, So This Must Be Barnes & Noble

In what has become my most typical Sunday of the last nine years, I paid a visit to a local Barnes & Noble bookstore this morning before heading over to my father's apartment for a visit.  Dad turned 97 at the end of April and he's still going so strong that I can easily see this being my routine for a few more years.  And that makes me happy.

At the B&N, I stopped at the first display of new books that I came to, right near the door and checkout area. I was almost immediately drawn into a conversation that was starting between a customer and the woman behind the counter because I sensed a book question on the horizon; I play that kind of book trivia game with myself when the opportunity offers itself because it's always funs to match wits with a bookstore employee.  

The question went something like this,"What's the name of that classic children's book about a bunch of kids who got tattooed and then mistreated each other?  You know, it's a classic that we all had to read in high school."  As the clerk stared blankly at her, I knew that it seemed suspiciously familiar to me and that I ought to know the answer to the question.  But it wouldn't come to me.  I couldn't, though, resist asking if that was the one where all the kids were stranded on an island, but I still couldn't conjure up the title.  Then it started to click, and I blurted out "something of the Flies?" And the customer immediately said, "Lord of the Flies" with a huge smile on her face.  The clerk could only add that she had never heard of it - and since she appeared to be in her mid-thirties I can only assume that her high school didn't require students to read that one.  But is Lord of the Flies no longer considered a classic of its type?  Come on.

But the strangest thing of all is that after I continued down the aisle and stopped at a table down the way, what was in the center of the display other than The Lord of the Flies?  I picked it up and waved it at the customer - and sold her a copy on the spot for her granddaughter.  (B&N offered me neither a commission nor a job, by the way - and this is the same B&N that refused to offer me a job when I retired for the first time a few years ago even though I proved to know more about books and the floor plan of this specific location than the interviewer knew.)

I left the store with two new magazines (Mystery Scene and the 100th issue of Bookmarks) and no books.  That's mostly because I simply don't have room to bring in many more books anymore, so I limit myself to new books from favorite authors and the occasional one I just can't resist.  I was really tempted by the display pictured above though because they had several books by authors I've enjoyed in the past on sale for five to seven dollars a piece.  Turns out that I have more willpower than I thought I had.

Happy Mothers Day, ladies!  I hope you are all having a great day.  My wife is hunkered down with one of those Hallmark movies that she loves so much, so we are both having a nice afternoon.