je ne veux pas travailler.

i was telling a new friend of mine the "it smells like brown people" story while i was simultaneously trying to flirt with him and the guy behind the coffee bar (better believe it), and it made me start wondering about all of the hideousness that i had forgotten over the short period from me dropping my cafe apron to wearing "business casual"*.

i began my stint at the bookstore because i had hated my job. fresh out of college, i had "scored" a job working working at a public relations firm doing some rather unethical public relationsing. but i was starting to feel uncomfortable, and frankly, unsafe at my workplace. my normal day involved dodging the proselytizing of my co-workers, avoiding the overtly sexual stare of the managers, and working twelve hours/driving for three more. the entire day consisted of pretending. after all, how will anyone buy into your clientele if you look like you're about to kill yourself. anyways, i didn't last very long but i lasted long enough for my team of co-workers to take me to the cheesecake factory and plan out my romantic future. they were both very pretty, very skinny, and very...surreal. like they had just come out of cosmopolitan with the specific purpose to remake me. they eventually came to the conclusion that i liked 'the intellectual type', and that they would drag me to georgetown to look for a fella.

i think i quit the next day.

afterwards, i took the first exit of the toll road, walked into a bookstore, and applied for a job. i was wearing a suit at the time, and one of the managers told me later, that they were kinda freaked out cos i had this crazed look on my face. but i knew my books so they hired me. and thus began my short, yet cherished career in the book slinger world.

it is a lot harder than people think. i mean, there is ringing side. you take a book, charge the customer, and then thrust the book into its new owner's hands. but every once in awhile, you get 'what book do you recommend if _____________?' challenge. the '_____________' could be anything. what do you recommend a fourteen year old girl who is only interested in things grounded in reality (read: no harry potter, twilight, etc.) and who is mature for her age? speak by laurie halse anderson. what about for the artsy kid who you don't know much about (read: i don't keep up with that woman's kids)? postsecret. what about for the toddler whose mother is an over analytical mess of nerves? any boynton book (they're cute, they're friendly, and bite-resistant). and if you're me (or valencia), you have to deal with some disgusting ignorance.

for those of you who haven't heard the story**, valencia and i were pulling a new book tuesday shift when a customer walked in and said, "it smells like brown people in here." first off, WHAT THE FUCK? second off, WHAT THE FUCK? valencia and i spent most of that day in the back room trying to figure out what brown people smelled like. then ended up getting into what makes an 'asian' salad an 'asian salad'. the following are usually included: mandarin oranges, soy sauce, ginger, pineapple, snow peas...and i'm sure a rack of arbitrarily asian ingredients.

who knows what these people were thinking. it's so disgusting that it's actually quite surprising. we still talk and laugh about it to this day because we still are unsure as to what we smell like, but since valencia is an awesome chef and since everyone thinks i smell like candy, i think we're okay.





* everyone else wears business casual. or business 'caaajj' if you want to be an asshole about it. my business casual involves a darker pair of jeans and a cardigan and a non-irreverent color of chucks.

**everyone knows this story, but i'm typing it out for posterity's sake