Surprises for the Other One

People still surprise me. Even after nearly 40 years and 16 years of retail experience I readily admit I have not seen everything. Perhaps it is naivete or maybe it is success with my goal of not becoming jaded. Though I am far short of my inspiration for this;Mary Oliver's line from "When Death Comes"

"When it's over, I want to say:all my life
I was a bride married to amazement."

several things this week have surprised.

First, there were, of course, the HP related. When you are talking the sheer numbers involved the potential for diaster is high-of course there's going to be some unhappy campers. This particular customer had reserved a book and was disgruntled when she came in to pick it up to see that we had many copies all at the same price as her reserved one. So she complained to me, the manager on duty. Aloud, I said all the right things but my internal dialogue was quite different. It went something like 'We have your book when we said we would at the advertised price-why exactly am I apologizing to you again?'

There was also the customer who complained about the restroom-she was using the ladies and noticed key spoilers from the book written on the bathroom wall. How exactly did that go down? Did they buy the book, take it home and read it then come back and write it? Or did they just make a beeline from the registers directly to the stall? Guess that frantic page turning and the smell of Sharpie should have tipped us off.

But my favorite surprise was in an e-mail. The male writer was describing a friend by saying 'woman love that guy' and expressing a wish to be him to see what it was like. It might read as sexist but I was taken aback. Of course I shouldn't have been-we're all complicated creatures with loads of quirks and our own insecurites but to read that, something I frequently wish (especially in situations like today where I overheard 2 regulars in conversation trying to distinguish me from my co-manager by saying "The pretty one?' "No, the other one") written by some else made the world feel smaller, in a good way. In a 'we're all more alike than different' way. And that is always a happy surprise.