Nurse the Hate: Hate the Book Store

True story. I walk into Borders to kill some time before my to-go lunch order is ready across the plaza. I'm just sort of browsing, and go right to the "Summer Reading" table with the superdeal paperbacks. I love looking at that table if I don't have a game plan in the Book Store. It's great to see something like "Zombie's Dating Guide" next to "Walden" or "Catcher in the Rye". So while I am staring at this random collection of books trying to make sense of it, I hear a Borders employee talking to a customer. "Here it is. It's over here"

Being walked over to a copy of "The Great Gatsby" by the slight bookstore employee is a guy around 21 years old. He looks like a guy that spent his high school years tormenting smaller kids in gym class with de-pantsings and well placed towel snaps to the scrotum. His buddy is shuffling behind him in shower shoes with that slow, pained walk that seems innate in NBA basketball players, self conscious High School football players, and the elderly suffering with chronic hip pain. That guy is also sporting one of those titanium necklaces worn by douchebags like Josh Beckett, as well as dyed blond hair with lot of "product" to offset his casual blue mesh gym shorts. He is absentmindedly staring around this strange store with the indifference of a legless man in Foot Locker.

The first guy looks down at "The Great Gatsby" warily like he's unsure that this is what the product he asked for was actually going to look like. Maybe he expected it to look like a Maxim Magazine. Maybe he expected a DVD, I don't know. With the same suspicious look he approached the table with, he turns the book over to look at the price. "FOURTEEN BUCKS!", he blurts out.

The second guy lazily turns his head to his friend. "Dude. That's why I don't read."

The $250 top of the line smart phone on guy #1 goes off. "What's up? Where are you at? Uh-huh." He puts the book down on top of the wrong stack, and they both shuffle out while carrying on the cell phone conversation. Dude, there will be no reading today.