A Horrifying Discovery

At work yesterday I saw on the floor by the entrance what I thought was a black doo-rag. Thinking it something someone might come back for, yet possibly was endowed with gross head sweat, I picked it up by as little of my finger tips as possible and went to place them in the Lost and Found. I recoiled in horror, dropped them to the ground, and probably shrieked a little less than a manly bellow. Immediately I sanitized my fingers, and the rest of my hand to the rist.

They were underpants.

Dirty underpants.

Dirty, feminine, underpants. Inside-out, upside-down, probably size-M basic black women's panties, casually laid out on the floor. And I accidentally touched them.

The most vile part of this experience is the realization that this only points to something even more disgusting happening elsewhere yesterday, very likely right in my store. Best Case Scenario: some teenagers thought it would be funny to leave one of their sisters' dirty drawers in the entranceway to a public location and then laugh about how "punk" they were. That's Best Case.

Worst case?

Something tawdry happened in my very store, possibly in the bathroom, more likely in the corner of reference and computer books next to the kids' department, away from prying eyes. Just a quick finger or two, something to rev the engine without blowing the gasket, so to speak. Something that necessitated the removal of said undergarments and their wadding up into the corner of a pocket, not so well constructed as to hold its contents all the way out of the store.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it was pretty hot for them, but I'm in no mood to have to get a herpes test any time soon, and I would appreciate it if anyone and everyone could refrain from boning royally in the confines of my place of business.

I don't think James Deen has starred in a Sexy Bookstore porno yet, but if not, any day now.

Mid-Week Miscellany

In honor of my job giving me off on an idle Wednesday, I'm slacking off on coming up with a long, themed rant for today. Instead, here are a bunch of completely unrelated jokes I wrote while I was at work this past week. If there's any inkling of a thematic thread, that would be "Yes, Timmy, there really are stupid questions."


Printing out a coupon for $10 off an entire cheesecake after the purchase of a fitness book is the commercial equivalent of playing dirty pool.

I said, "Stay dry," because it was raining, but it became very awkward when I realized you were over forty and buying Fifty Shades of Grey."

I went to buy a thing online off of Amazon.co.uk but instead they made me buy it "in queue."

A couple walked past me coming back from my break at the chain bookstore, and the guy asked the girl, "What's your dream job?"My first thought was, "Hey. Fuck you, buddy."

On Anal Sex

Either a 12 year old girl or a 10 year old boy called up the book store I work at and asked me if I had the book "Anal Sex."

What I said, as (s)he giggled, was, "Cute," and promptly hung up, because what I wanted to say was not appropriate for a public work environment.

What I wanted to say was:

1. First off, you suck at this. You're supposed to try to get me to say "anal sex," not just ask me and say it yourself. Were you just looking for a reasonable excuse to say  dirty word? Because you blew it, my friend. You are worthless at prank calling. I went to high school with two kids who would tag-team local establishments during Free Period as an incestuous hillbilly household, complete with phony voices. One of them is a motivation speaker and life coach. That is how to be a success. You are just garbage. All you've done is look like an idiot and waste about seven seconds of my day. Congratulations. I'm glad you found a way to entertain yourselves at 3:43 on a Monday afternoon between getting dropped off at your bus stop and your parents coming home with Chipotle.

2. There is no such book as "Anal Sex." I know this for a fact. A) Because I work in a book store and I've seen every sex book we carry, carted off sometimes two-at-a-time to the back of the Children's department by groups of teenagers looking to chortle and pop a chubby to the Kama Sutra line drawings accompanying Dr. Ruth's explanations of how to properly digitally stimulate your woman's clitoris, and B) because I'm a huge perv and I've been on the internet for longer than a minute and a half. Listen, I could find you "Anal Sex for Dummies," or "The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex" for men or women. Anal Health, Prostate Health, Healthy Marriage, Sex Coupons, "Why Do Men Marry Bitches?" "The Good Girl's Guide to Bad Girl Sex," I've seen all of them. The ones about butt sex? Yeah, we don't typically carry those in the store. Give me 2-4 days and I can get one to you, either here or shipped, discretely, straight to your house. Or gay to your house, I don't care. I changed out of work clothes in the handicapped stall of the men's room after work last week, and I found an open copy of Playgirl wedged in the baby changing station. Second time that's happened. I really don't give a care about how you get your swerve on.

Just don't be an asshat, kids.

Ironic Book Locations in a Barnes & Noble

"No, we're not B. Dalton and we're doing just fine, thank you."

• Books on back pain
• Health; bottom shelf
  
• WWII magazine
• Newsstand; Current Events
  
• "Get Rich Quick!"
• 'Misplaced' in Religion; Bibles
  
• "Wuthering Heights," (164 years old)
• Teen fiction (which is incidentally equal in size to "Paranormal Teen Romance," god help us.)
  
• Every comic book not in the comics section:
• Allison Bechdel's Fun Home, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis and Spiegelman's Maus in Bio
• The manga bibles (religious, not artistic). [Two different ones, plus versions of Genesis and Exodus, but oddly not R. Crumb's fully illustrated Book of Genesis.]
• All of the Simpsons/Dilbert/Peanuts/etc comics misfiled as "Humor" that are actually better suited as kindling.