I promised you another idiot, so...

Drunk: [Walks in]

Me: Sorry, we’re just closing.

Drunk: [Waves paper at me] I wanna get in.

Me: Sorry, we’re closed.

Drunk: [Waves paper again]

Me: What is that?

Drunk: It’s my ticket for the Swollen Members. I wanna get in.

Me: [I look at ticket. It’s a ticket for the Swollen Members concert, three blocks away at the Pyramid.] You’re not at the Pyramid dude. It’s over that way.

Drunk: What?

I’d finish this, but I’m going home now. You can see where it went from there…

I'd like to return this book...

Lady: I’d like to return this book and get another one to read.

Me: Okay, we don’t do trade. We just buy books. [I look at book] Okay, it would be this much for that book.

Lady: Oh, I paid more for this book. See? [She points at our original price.]

Me: Um, yeah, we’re not the library. Why would I pay you what you paid for the book? We need to make money here…

Lady: Oh.

(The day is still early. I’ll keep you posted on further idiots…)

This Old Guy Who Comes In...

…did something especially funny the other day. Now he looks like a hobo who was hit in the head with a propane tank, and mostly comes in to use the bathroom. He calls me Boss, and the girls Chickadee (and makes various lewd comments like, I guess I won’t use the bathroom today since you don’t have any Playboy).

Anyway, the other day he came in, wandered back to the restaurant, approached server Janis, reached in his coat and said:

Dented Head Guy: I don’t want to offend you or anything Chickadee, but I was wondering if you wanted…..

Janis: [gulp]

Dented Head Guy: (opens his coat)…to buy a ham.

That’s right, he opened his coat to reveal a whole ham he had under his arm. Apparently for sale.

(I’m not really sure how to end this story, except to say that all meat we serve at EAT! comes from approved sources and not from hoboes’ armpits.)

Do you buy books here too?

Me: Yes, here’s a pamphlet.

Skeevy Old Guy: Well without me actually reading this, can you just tell me what you buy? Like I guess this is just a literate kind of place…and not really a visual place.

Me: Sorry. What do you mean?

Skeevy Old Guy: Well, I guess you just buy books here. You don’t really look at porno, eh?

Me: Yeah, no, not really.

***** would like to recall the message, "Sweets"

Some woman emailed me last week about catering. We had seven emails back and forth on it, until she said she’d pick it up on a certain date, did I want a credit card number, etc. Then an hour later I get a message containing only the text:

***** would like to recall the message, “Sweets”.

What is this, I thought? I emailed her. Nothing. I emailed again later. Nothing. Who the Hell does this? Do you understand how the Internet works? You can’t recall a message, like some crummy GM car. It’s not like shooting a carrier pigeon as it’s flying away. The email’s out there sugar. Have the balls to say, I changed my mind. That I get. Recalling a message? That’s just goofy.

(I had to look this up, and I now guess she was using Outlook. Some genius MS engineer invented this feature but forgot to mention that it only works if the person at the other end has Outlook too. [Which I don’t because I’m not an idiot.])

Some Girl Just Walked in Here....

….and walked out again. Through the door, I heard her say (very angrily), “It’s a f***ing bookstore!” She walked in again after a few moments, asked (rudely), “Is there a bathroom here?” I replied (civilly), “Yes”. “Come on in!”, she yelled (basely), to her two friends waiting outside. F***ing teenagers.

Just got this in my inbox...

My name is gyna , I live Vancouver, BC. I am selling my books collection which includes, ressourcefuly rich book,collegue books, out-of print books, antique books and more.

The overall book worth about $7000 CAN ( reference price from amazone, ebay, and antique books)but i am willing to give it away at your proposed price. please find the books liste attached

My books are still in very good conditions and most of them are like new in slip case and have never been used. any buyeur please find some pictures in attachement as well.

Charitable books seller, professional and occasional books seller are welcome to this offer. preferably books sellers living within Canada. Nevertheless if you live US please let me know if you will be abale to get it to your place from bellingham,WA. It is just like finding a gold box.

Please read above to yourselfs with thick Russian accente. Seriously, if anyone wants Gyna’s gold box, let me know. I’ll hook you up.

Top Ten Awesome Things Heard at Aqua Books/EAT! bistro This Week

10. Do you do psychic readings? (I knew you were going to ask that.)

9. Do you have a bathroom here? (No, we’re the only restaurant in town without one. Can I get you a refill on your water?)

8. Can I trade a book for a book? (Yeah, let me look in my business plan and see if that’s in there.)

7. Do you know of anywhere to eat? (Um, except for the RESTAURANT HERE, no.)

6. This is a great book. I should really buy it, but I already have too much junk in my house. (I really have nothing to add here.)

5. Do you have big bags here? (No just tiny ones. One book per customer please.)

4. The wait for a table is too long here, let’s go to Soup Pierre. (They won’t like the wait there either. SP has been out of business for two months.)

3. Do you have that book Madonna wrote? (Which one, the kids book or the dirty one? Perv.)

2. Are these books for sale? (No, you’re in my personal library in my house. Please ignore the giant sign outside that says Aqua Books.)

1. Can I have a parking meter label? (True story. Someone wanted a souvenir of this.)

Jay and Silent Bob's Soggy Pizza

Two drunk dudes just walked in here. I’ll call them Jay and Silent Bob.

Jay: Hey. Do you have a heater? (pulls a gross bag out of another gross bag) Because I have a soggy pizza in here and I need you to heat it up.

Andrea: Sorry, we don’t really do that here.

Jay: But the sign outside says this is a restaurant.

Andrea: Sorry.

Jay: I thought this was that kind of place.

Real Customer Jumps In: No, it’s a bookstore.

Jay: Your sign outside says restaurant you know. You need to change that you know.

I Jump In: Yeah okay, thanks.

Jay: You need to change that you know.

Me: Okay, will do.

Jay: (As he leaves) That’s false &^&# advertising you know.

[exeunt]

(we do have a restaurant, but they didn’t need to know that you know)

Follow the line-up

I’ve been using a new line at the restaurant this week. While my wife, Chef Candace,  was away in Quebec, she told me how she decided where to eat. “I just went where the most people were lined up. I knew that’s where the best food would be.” So since our restaurant is pretty much always full by twelve o’clock, I’ve been telling people who are unsure if they want to wait, “Hey, if you want to know where the best food is, follow the line-up.” (Then as we were going home last night, we drove by McDonald’s. There was a huge line-up in the drive-through. I guess Winnipeg isn’t Quebec.)

"Hey....

this place is full of women!”

- A new customer who came into EAT! lunch yesterday for the first time. I explained to her that, while men are often a little too thick to figure out our menu, chicks dig it. Since it was lunchtime, she had to wait ten or fifteen minutes for a table, and, being a woman, she loved what she had. (We also accept male customers.)

Overheard at Aqua Books...

“I brought Dad to their restaurant a couple of months ago. He asked me where the burgers and sandwiches and stuff were. I told him, This ain’t that kind of place Dad. They serve arty food here.”

- a guy of about fifty-ish, talking about EAT!

I think they’re both wrong. As a bookstore owner, I can confirm that some people love to browse and be surprised. Other people want what they want and they want it now. It goes to personality.

In Winnipeg, there is a particularly disastrous used bookstore. Someone said to me one day, Oh I love it there. You can go one day, dig throught the piles and find something great. The next day, you can go back, dig again and find something you didn’t find the day before. I said, Well, if they cleaned the place up, you would’ve found them both the first day. Is there anything wrong with that?

fred-wilson:

“Browsing the stacks is one of the most overrated and abused examples in the canon of things-we-used-to-do-that-were-so-much-better.”

—

nice rant by Steven Johnson on the topic of “losing serendipity”

stevenberlinjohnson.com: Can We Please Kill This Meme Now