More Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops (4 page)

CUSTOMER:
No, it doesn’t, does it? It’s really annoying, too, ’cause I’d booked a holiday for next month, and I was really looking forward to it.

CUSTOMER:
Ooh, books by Nicholas Shakespeare! Is he William Shakespeare’s son?

CUSTOMER:
I’d like a book for a friend about saving the world from alien invasion. I’d like the main character to be a little like Freddie Mercury and a little like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Does anything spring to mind?

CUSTOMER:
Do you have
Windows 7 for Dummies
?

BOOKSELLER:
Sorry, we’re an antiquarian bookshop; nearly everything in here pre-dates computers.

CUSTOMER:
Oh. Do you have user guides for antiquarian computers? You know from, like, the olden days, when they had swords and stuff?

BOOKSELLER:
... ?

CHILD
(to bookseller)
: Does Santa come to your bookshop to get gifts for kids?

BOOKSELLER
(nodding wisely)
: Yes. Yes. He does.

CHILD:
That’s awesome!

BOOKSELLER:
Yes, it is.

CHILD:
But ...

BOOKSELLER:
But what?

CHILD:
But ... Santa’s really fat. I don’t think he could squeeze down the corridors between the bookshelves.

BOOKSELLER:
It’s OK. He sends us a list beforehand, and we leave the books by the door.

CHILD
(impressed)
: That makes you Santa’s elf!

BOOKSELLER:
Yes ... yes, I suppose it does.

CUSTOMER:
Do you have any cards?

BOOKSELLER:
We have some old postcards in a box by the door. Some of them have already been written on, though.

CUSTOMER:
Oh, that’s OK. Do you have one that says ‘To Juliet, with love from Christine’? It would save me writing it out again, you see.

CHILD:
Mummy, where is the half-way point between Earth and Heaven?
(Pause)
It must be really far away.
(Pause)
Do you get to stop for a rest on your way up?

CUSTOMER:
Pride and Prejudice
was published a long time ago, right?

BOOKSELLER:
Yep.

CUSTOMER:
I thought so. Colin Firth’s looking really good for his age, then.

CUSTOMER:
We’re having a book burning at our religious group tonight. I need all your books on witchcraft.

BOOKSELLER:
...

CUSTOMER:
And, as we’re not going to read them, I expect a discount. We’re doing the world a favour by burning them, you know.