I'll never stray again

While getting my oil changed for the first time in, oh, 10,000 miles (sorry, Dad), I decided to hop on over to the Books A Million that was in the shopping center and pick up the latest Book Club selection for my plane ride next weekend.

Big mistake. Fifteen minutes later, I left feeling dirty and vowed to never again to enter into a bookstore that wasn't Barnes and Noble.

The shelves were disorganized, the employees looked comatose, and the selection of Christian reading was disturbingly large. Knowing that I was hunting for a book that would be in the biography section, but not being able to remember the name of the author, I ventured over to the "Customer Service" station. After standing there for a few minutes, some kid with an apron finally asked me if I needed anything. I asked if they had the book, and said that I just needed to know who wrote it.

"Oh, I can take you to it if you want!"

Uh, ok. I followed him to the biography section and watched as he aimlessly scanned the shelves.

"Um... I can probably find it. Who was the author?" I tentatively asked.

"Oh, uh, I don't really know," he mumbled before going back to aimlessly searching.

Major restraint involved on my part.

"Um, that was why I came to you in the first place. I needed to know who wrote it. I could have just looked around for the title in the biography section myself but was trying to save time."

Mumble, mumble, mumble. He left, presumably to actually figure out what he was looking for. Some other surly employee returned in a few minutes and grumpily pointed me to the book. Somehow I left the situation feeling like the bad guy, even though I thought there was clear stupidity on the first person's part, and undue bitterness from the second. This kind of insolence would never happen late night in front of my laptop while browsing for books on Amazon.

For me, buying books is a very sacred and pleasurable experience. Moving forward, I vow to only patronize institutions that respect that. Even if they are disgustingly huge chains who squash the little guys out of business. At least I know the atmosphere will be pleasant.