A Million Bizzare Moments

We were in the mood for a bookstore tonight and our local Barnes & Noble is still closed, so we were stuck going to Books-A-Million. After a couple hours there, I'm not sure if I should swear it off forever or spend the entire day there again tomorrow and every day thereafter.

It started ominously when Liz and I walked to the front door and noticed a rather unlikely pair consisting of a moderately hippyish-looking young woman and conservatively dressed elderly woman deep in conversation on the bookstore's outdoor patio. We arrived just in time to hear:

Hippy: I love everybody. I don't even know you, and I love you already.
Old Woman: (in thick Southern drawl) Well, the Bible says you have to love people and...

I wasn't quite sure who was trying to convert whom (or to what), but we walked in nonetheless, grateful in the knowledge that love was flowing on the patio. Twenty minutes later, as we sat drinking our coffees, hippy girl walks by.

"You guys have matching shirts! That's so cute!"
"Yeah, we noticed that we both had on green shirts as we were leaving," I said. "It's just a coincidence."
"You mean you didn't do it on purpose?" she said with a dejected look on her face roughly akin to what one would expect had she just watched her only child attacked by rabid porcupines.
"Nope, just a coincidence."
"Well, I think it's great," she said, somewhat illogically. "I think it's just great."

The moment we ceased talking about how awkward the interruption was, she was back.

"Did you know your purse is green too?" she asked Liz.
"Yes, I know what color my purse is."
"Well, I think it's great. (after a beat) How are you guys?"

We said we were fine, as she lingered by our table and considered pulling up the extra chair that unfortunately sat empty at our table. As she cast a few furtive glances into her gargantuan purse that appeared to contain enough published material to make her presence in a bookstore wildly unnecessary, I was expecting her to ask whether we had found Jesus or perhaps some more obscure deity. Instead, she asked us what time it was.

"7:20 already? Wow, umm... are you sure? How can it be....oh wow," she said in considerable dismay, in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the March Hare. This news seemed to alarm her even more than hearing that we hadn't intentionally matched our shirts. Though I can't imagine why; she clearly had no where else to be.

She continued:

"Is it hot out there? I hate it when it's hot outside. I have all this extra padding (pointing to her ample midsection). I just hate it when...

I tuned her out and resumed reading my book as she rambled on aimlessly. After about 5 painfully long minutes, another target mercifully walked through the door.

"How tall are you?" she asked, to which he thoughtfully replied, "How short are you?"

Clearly, she had met her match. The two continued in conversation.

Roughly five minutes later uproarious laughter broke out at the table next to us. The subject of this merriment was a 5-second clip of video being replayed endlessly by a group of three people bearing the unmistakable look of those who don't make it out much. The audio content of the video, which I never had the pleasure of viewing, consisted of 3 high-pitched "eeks." "Eek, eek, eek," it went, and the laughter, inexplicably followed. For the next 5 minutes. As the laughter and "eeks" continued, I spent considerable energy, failing miserably, in an attempt to come up with any possible visual image that might accompany this rather annoying sound that would account for any humor whatsoever.

Meanwhile, another woman who had been on her cell phone since the moment she walked in the store, began laughing hysterically while speaking on her cell phone.

"Gee, why aren't we having a better time?" I asked to Liz.

We decided that a number of people in the area must have living rooms bearing a striking resemblance to this Books-A-Million, accounting for the overly familiar behavior inside. As we came to this conclusion, yet another woman walked in, and noticing another customer dressed in her work uniform, yelled a series of questions across the store to this perfect stranger concerning the details of her job, including her salary and hours.

In the midst of the noise, the man who had been accosted by the hippy broke away from her to order coffee.

"Would you like a snack as well," asked the clerk.
"Well I would like one," said the man, but are you asking if I want to actually buy it? Cause that's a different story. Just so we're straight.

As this unlikely semantics debate continued, the hippy walked back into the store from the patio, enthusiastically accompanied by a similarly overweight man wearing a t-shirt that cleverly bore the imprint of a tuxedo on its front side.

I thought that was just great. If only she would have had one to match.