Let me tell you about a tragedy! Grab your tear bucket, tissues, and blanket and get ready for the emotional ride of a lifetime! Here we go…

Last evening, after tearing (this is in reference to reading quickly and crying. Both!) through the final 100 pages at a feverish pace, I finished the book, “Catching Fire” and get this…I had not yet purchased “Mockingjay” to immediately jump into. Tragedy right?!? RIGHT?!?! I’m going to pause while you scream and cry…

(pausing for screaming and/or crying)

Okay, you have composed yourself well. Back to the story. This is riveting is it not? How do you balance on the edge of your seat like that???

So today, I went to my local Barnes and Noble to purchase the book!

(pausing for additional screaming and/or crying in excitement)

As you can imagine given the popularity of The Hunger Games series of books, it was not hard to find at all. I strolled in, immediately saw the display, grabbed the book, tossed my hair, and strolled on to the check out counter. Now here is where it gets dicey. To give you some perspective, here are some things I fear, in no particular order:

– The breeding of Whales with Polar Bears and Bruce Vilanch – aka: The Polarwhalealanch.
– People soliciting outside of grocery stores.
– Touchy ghosts.
– People trying to get me to sign a petition
– The thought of cotton candy coming to life in my mouth and singing “Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls” as it expands and blows my head to pieces.
– People trying to up-sell me on memberships at retail stores.

So you get my fear upon approaching the counter. I knew for sure this lady would try to up-sell me to some new B&N program where I get a discount or a patch or a pat on the back, or whatever. But step by step, my fear subsided. You see I love bookstores (this is going to be a quick side note) So much so that I have almost cried on two occasions in which my favorite bookstores were closed (Borders on Sunset & Vine, B&N next to The Landmark). And in this moment of step and love I realized, “hey, I think my Borders Membership card transferred over to B&N, I can just tell her that, she won’t try to up-sell me, and we’ll be smooth sailors.”

At this point you may be asking yourself, “Justin, why didn’t you just sign up for the B&N membership account?” Well I don’t know the answer to that one. I think it costs money, so that’s what I’m going with. Anyway, very excited I approached the counter, “Mockingjay” in hand, as the lovely lady at the counter and I began the following exchange:

LADY:
Hello, how are you?

HERO (I refer to myself as HERO in this scenario, deal with it):
I am good, yourself? (it should also be noted that I gave up the appropriate response of “well,” because I think the common man says “good” and I am the common man, HERO)

LADY:
Is this all?

HERO:
Yes please.

LADY:
Do you have a Barnes and Noble card?

HERO:
No, but you know, I do have a Borders card and I think it transferred over.

LADY:
Oh no, that was over about a month ago. That’ll be $15.

HERO:
Oh.

HERO swipes his card and signs.

LADY:
Here you go. Have a great day!

LADY places book in a paper bag and hands to our HERO. HERO exits confused.

(pausing for screaming and crying in regard to confusion and the boringness of this story)

This lady! Not only did she not up-sell me on getting a new B&N card of my own, but she also snuck in putting my book in a bag! I couldn’t even tell her “no bag please” because she beat me to it! I was so confused! B&N I don’t know if I should applaud you for not catering towards my worst fears and trying to up-sell me, or applaud you for a quick and easy transaction, but I applaud you nonetheless. Well done B&N. Well done!