The Long National Nightmare Is Over

Well, it was long by my standards.  Three entire weeks of finding textbooks for extremely clueless people who were getting more and more desperate (and more and more rude) as the days went on.

Friday was my last day at the textbook store.  I didn't get asked to stay permanently, and I can't help being really, really glad about that.  (Especially in light of the extremely stupid sunburn I'm sporting after a day at the beach yesterday.  The spray-on sunscreen failed me, but only partially.  So I have a blotchy sunburn in some places, and I also look like I'm constantly wearing one of those stupid shrug things on my shoulders - only in a lovely, bright maroon color.  I have no idea how this happened.  But I do know this: if I had to go to work this week with this sunburn, it would sap all of my remaining will to live, and I would be a lifeless husk.)

Here are some things I witnessed at the textbook store.  I promise I am not making even one of them up.

• A teenager with a really amazing mullet, who gave his email address as something like darkknightoflove@blahblah.com, and who paid for his textbooks out of his Twilight: Eclipse wallet.
• Hordes of incredibly ill-prepared people who came in and basically asked "Do you have that one book by that one guy for that one class?"  I would ask them (reasonably, I think): "Which class?" at which point they would get an incredibly annoyed look on their face and say "I don't know!  Isn't that what you're here for?"
• A variation on that: "I'm looking for the orange Algebra book."  I would then pull the only orange Algebra book on the shelves.  "No, not that orange Algebra book."
• One of my favorites: a girl came in wearing shorts that had to be six inches from waistline to hem, a huge t-shirt that hung over one shoulder, exposing bathing suit straps, platform sandals and her hair in a side ponytail that I had perfected in the fourth grade.  She was holding an Anatomy and Physiology lab manual and said "I want to compare this to the one you have on the shelf and see if they're the same.  They should be the same, right?  What's the difference?"  We went to the shelf with the current A&P lab manuals to find one labeled "CAT."  Hers said "FETAL PIG."  She said "That shouldn't matter, right?"
• I was reshelving books when a girl came up to me and said "I can't find the Poli-Sci section."  I said "No problem, it's labeled as POSI on the sign at the end of the aisle."  I then glanced up to realize that the reason she can't see the neon green sign is because she refuses to take off her giant, sparkly Snooki sunglasses.  I took her over to the section and she waved her hand at me and said "You can go now."

You think the world is fucked now?  Wait till these idiots take over.