Today at Logos

I almost thought there would BE no Logos report this week, things were so dead almost all afternoon, but they did pick up.  A bit.  A customer suggested that perhaps it was because kids were out doing Pokemon Go instead and I have to say that when Walt and I left the store at 6, every person we passed was looking at their cell phones.  Susan says you can buy..whatever those things are they are trying to capture...so that they have to come inside Logos.  I don't understand.  I guess I'm just too old.  I do wonder how long this phase is going to last.  I thought Candy Crush was a passing fad and it's still around...

Anyway, again Sandy had to rush off to pick up her granddaughter.  I probably won't see much of her for awhile.  The Grandma duty (how I envy her!) will apparently last all summer...and she and her wife are going off on a two week vacation too.  We may have to introduce ourselves all over again when Fall rolls around.

I did have two customers right off the bat, a guy who bought a pocket-book sized book and asked if we had a small bag.  I asked if he was from Davis and he admitted he lives in Sacramento and didn't realize about Davis' anti-bag law.  He decided not to pay 25 cents for a big shopping bag!

He was followed by a guy who bought 3 bargain books.

And then there was nothing.  I sat there for nearly an hour and a half and not. one. single. person. came into the store. It was good for me because in the 4 hours I was there I read a 200 page book.  But not all that good for business.

Finally a couple came in and disappeared into the shelves.  They didn't make a sound for about 10 minutes and finally he bought a copy of the book "The Physicists."  He was the customer who suggested everyone was too busy playing Pokemon Go to do any book browsing.

At 3:45 I saw a guy who looked kinda familiar looking at bargain books.  When he came in with 3 books to buy, I realized it was Marta's father, a man of few words  Other than "Hi, Bev" he didn't say a thing, just handed me his money, smiled and left. But that's par for the course for our interactions, so I wasn't upset.

A grizzled older man bought a Dictionary of Catholic Devotions and a novel by Paul Theroux.  He was the first, but not the last customer to reek of body odor.  The temps were near 100 outside, though a comfortable 78 in the store.

A woman wearing olive green shorts and matching flip flops quickly looked thru the literature section and then rushed outside to meet a friend.

A tall Lincolnesque man with a blue shirt and black wide rimmed grey shorts and crocs was looking for "Siddhartha," but didn't find it.  He left, but was back 5 minutes later to ask if anyone had turned in a credit card (no one had)

A woman reeking of cigarette smoke, bought two books and told me that if I was looking for a good movie, she recommended Tarzan, which she had just seen.  Made me wonder if the 4 p.m. rush every Thursday is not folks coming in on an arriving train, but rather people leaving the theater, just a block away.

A stooped old man with a monk cut (just white hair on the sides) came in with an exaggerated old man duck walk. He was a vision in paste, with a powder blue shirt and plaid shorts in pastel colors.  He was looking for a book by Houston Smith and told me he wrote fiction, but when I looked him up on Amazon, I saw that it was history that he wrote  In an event, we apparently didn't have what he was looking for and he left.

My friend arrived at 4:30 and was my biggest sale of the day. He'd been looking at a set of books about the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.  I think it was four books, and each was an in-depth look at one of Wright's houses.  The sale was $50.

A woman was looking for a book called "Pax Britannica," a series of books written in the 1960s.  She seemed surprised we didn't have it!

A guy I had not noticed before because he was so quiet for so long carried an armload (9) of philosophy books.  He said that should hold him for awhile.

A sweet-faced, thin girl bought a copy of "Evangeline."

At 5:30, I finished the book I started when I came into the store -- all 205 pages of it.  It was the second in Robert Parker's 27 book set about detective Spencer (does he have a first name?)  I had already read book one.  This was a run of the mill detective story and there were writing elements I thought were not very good, but he did use a wonderful phrase that I hope to keep in my vocabulary.  Spencer wakes up after a party the night before, surveys the mess and says that it is the "detritus of jollity."  Isn't that just a phrase you want to work into a conversation some time?  I love stuff like that.

A very skinny bought a science fiction book for $3.80.  He handled me three one-dollar bills and then struggled and struggled to get the change out of the pocket of his very tight jeans!

Susan and Peter arrived.  I was surprised to see them because I thought they were going to be on vacation this week, but they were leaving the next day to fly back east to be with Peter's family to celebrate his 85th. Peter is apparently not into birthday celebrations so seemed a bit disgruntled when I wished him a happy birthday.

Walt arrived and we headed home, wending our way through all the Pokemon Go payers.  Leaving the store and being hit by the heat was a real shock.  With the air conditioning on in the store and the fan blowing on me I had no idea it was that hot.  Fortunately we were soon in an air conditioned car, heading for an air conditioned house--and I still had ice cold water in my snack bag, so I was just fine.

I would do terrible in a seriously hot country