Then Lili Wrote

Whoa…what a day. My feet are throbbing, my head is achy and I could really use a vodka tonic, but it’s alright since I’ve definitely got the hang of this book selling thing.

Today a man asked me to help him find a new romance series. In his words, the series “had to be like about vampires and romance and like those books where the girl meets a guy and he’s all dark and stuff and she doesn’t like him but he turns out to be a vampire and she loves him most for his darkness.” He named a slew of authors I would NEVER read and told me he needed something like that. Apparently buddy has a library’s worth of shitty romance novels in the house he shares with his sister. As we rummaged through the romance section he kept mentioning that my “boyfriend or husband” should buy me “something real nice and expensive” for the holidays since I was so helpful. Instead of saying something along the lines of “actually my girlfriend and I don’t exchange gifts” I just smirked and kept handing him books to look over. He also said that a girl like me “needed someone strong and mysterious,” I told him I liked “weak men who are easy to push around.”

After twenty minutes with this dude he said he’d take my next suggestion and phone number. I found him some book that sounded like the vampire version of a Candace Bushnell novel, handed him the first and second part of the series and told him to have a nice day. As he made his way down the escalator he shouted “I never go that number, but it’s okay I’ll be back” and I replied “Ok, but I might not be here anymore…”

Lesson: While having epic cleavage makes flirting with cute coworkers fun, it is NOT fun when 40-somethings want your number and a book about biting. Bye bye v-necks, hello turtle necks.

Saturday at the bookstore…