The Path of the Bookseller

“I am searching for a stuffed moose.”

I had a feeling when I came in that the day would be odd, but to be inspired to say that over the walkies before my coffee had even kicked in seemed to be some sort of confirming omen.

I was, indeed, looking for a stuffed moose. A customer had called us with this desperate quest. She had been at a distant branch of our store when on vacation, and her son had spotted one and wouldn’t stop pestering her for it now that they were home. She needed to get one so her son would calm down.

Fortunately, we had them. (Yes, despite officially being a bookstore, we do carry stuffed moose. And scented pencils. And electronic screaming monkey keychains.) I put the moose on hold, and it was bought later in the day. I didn’t see if it went to the woman who was dragging around three little kids. The kids were shrieking the universal signal for Overdue Naptime. Getting close enough to see if she had the moose might have permanently endangered my hearing.

As I left the registers after putting the moose on hold, I heard one of the cashiers page for someone to bring boxes up to the front so that a customer could carry a lot of things from the clearance sale out of the store.

The clearance sale happens a couple of times a year, including the annual post-holiday sale which was now ending. All the items that we have gotten in but can not return to the publishers or vendors for full credit, and which have been on our shelves for long enough that we knew that they are never going to sell at full price, go on sale. At first, they are fifty percent off, then seventy-five.

And then, inevitable as death, taxes, and brand-new posthumous Tupac and Johnny Cash albums, comes Dollar Day. Everything on the rack is marked down to one dollar. And the locusts attack.

By the time that things have come down to a dollar, most of the stuff that most people would want are gone, leaving the dregs. Still, enough there that people would blow a dollar on remains to make it fun shopping.

Once I found out that it was Dollar Day, I realized that every time that I passed the rack, I was slowing down to see what I might want from it. I had told coworkers that I was going to try to wait until the end of my day to shop the racks. That didn’t work. I hit the rack during lunch.

My haul:

• Four CDs: Environments 1, the Brokeback Mountain remix album, the Sundays’ Blind, and the Higher Ground benefit for New Orleans.
• A pocket travel nightlight/clock.
• A protective case for my iPod Nano.
• The official Death of Superman t-shirt.
• A small journal with a cool magnetic clasp.
• The score to Ravel’s Daphnis & Chloe suites.
• Selected Writings of Philo of Alexandria.
• A compendium of Dilbert business books.
• Nick Bantock’s The Golden Mean
• A Dover book on Simple Chess
• and a big book on the Grammy Awards, including an interactive game DVD, which we’ve been stuck with as an exclusive item for years, and for which I’ve never seen anyone spend more than one dollar.

I spent $16.16 with tax. According to the receipt, I saved $206.68, compared to what I would have spent had I gotten any of these things at full price. Which I wouldn’t have.

Throughout the day, scruffy people flocked to the bargain rack. Many picked up the odd items, squinted at them, then randomly threw them back.

Some items were simply mystifying. The oddest was a set of a dozen or so clear cubes with alligator clips arising from them, too awkward for electronics, too flimsy for office use. I imagine that someone somewhere might hold a countercultural tasting party which might require a dozen tabletop roach clips, but I don’t know that there would be enough demand to justify a mass-market item being created for that.

There was also an endless array of geegaws, games, and the like, promoting Hannah Montana and the initial High School Musical films, which had apparently passed their born-on dates. The Hannah Montana items looked particularly creepy: several shared a photo of her with her eyes mostly showing white, as if they were promoting Miley Cyrus and Ms. Hyde.

I stashed all the stuff that I had purchased near my coat in the back until the end of the day. When I left, my manager took a perfunctory look at my bag and receipt and waved me onward.

Something in the bag triggered the door alarms as I went through. A customer who had just come in turned to me and yelled “Run!” The other customer who came in with her called out, “As long as it’s already beeping, grab some more stuff.”

The customers, manager, and I all laughed as the manager waved me on. I schlepped the bag on home.