Free More Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell Page B

to know if it’s possible to claim my back garden as a separate nation.

     
    CUSTOMER: Do you have books on how to look after horses?
    BOOKSELLER: Yep, they’ll be in our nature section.
    CUSTOMER: Great. I need to do research on how to look after unicorns, and they’re basically the same thing.
    BOOKSELLER: ...

     
    (A customer is reading a book about the nativity)
    CUSTOMER
(to her friend)
: Don’t you ever get the feeling that Baby Jesus is somehow related to Herod? I always freak out, thinking that he’s going to go: ‘JESUS. I AM YOUR FATHER!’

     
    CUSTOMER
(to her friend)
: You know the book
War Horse
?
    CUSTOMER’S FRIEND: Yeah.
    CUSTOMER: It’s about horses during a war, right?
    CUSTOMER’S FRIEND: Yeah, I think so.
    CUSTOMER: But, like, how did they interview the horses to find out what it was like during the war?
    CUSTOMER’S FRIEND: Dunno.
    CUSTOMER
(clicks her fingers)
: Got it. Did they use a horse whisperer or something?
    CUSTOMER’S FRIEND: I guess they must have done.
    CUSTOMER: That’s, like, so cool.

     
    CUSTOMER: I’d love to write a book.
    BOOKSELLER: Then you should write one.
    CUSTOMER: I really don’t have the time.
    BOOKSELLER: I’m sure you could make time.
    CUSTOMER: No, you don’t get it; I really don’t have the time. I had my fortune read on Monday, and the fortune teller lady said that I’m going to get knocked down by a bus next week. She said that it’ll probably kill me.
    BOOKSELLER: ... Oh. Well, er, that doesn’t sound very nice.
    CUSTOMER: No, it doesn’t, does it? It’s really annoying, too, ’cause I’d booked a holiday for next month, and I was really looking forward to it.

     

     
    CUSTOMER: Ooh, books by Nicholas Shakespeare! Is he William Shakespeare’s son?

     
    CUSTOMER: I’d like a book for a friend about saving the world from alien invasion. I’d like the main character to be a little like Freddie Mercury and a little like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Does anything spring to mind?

     

     
    CUSTOMER: Do you have
Windows 7 for Dummies
?
    BOOKSELLER: Sorry, we’re an antiquarian bookshop; nearly everything in here pre-dates computers.
    CUSTOMER: Oh. Do you have user guides for antiquarian computers? You know from, like, the olden days, when they had swords and stuff?
    BOOKSELLER: ... ?

     
    CHILD
(to bookseller)
: Does Santa come to your bookshop to get gifts for kids?
    BOOKSELLER
(nodding wisely)
: Yes. Yes. He does.
    CHILD: That’s awesome!
    BOOKSELLER: Yes, it is.
    CHILD: But ...
    BOOKSELLER: But what?
    CHILD: But ... Santa’s really fat. I don’t think he could squeeze down the corridors between the bookshelves.
    BOOKSELLER: It’s OK. He sends us a list beforehand, and we leave the books by the door.
    CHILD
(impressed)
: That makes you Santa’s elf!
    BOOKSELLER: Yes ... yes, I suppose it does.

     
    CUSTOMER: Do you have any cards?
    BOOKSELLER: We have some old postcards in a box by the door. Some of them have already been written on, though.
    CUSTOMER: Oh, that’s OK. Do you have one that says ‘To Juliet, with love from Christine’? It would save me writing it out again, you see.

     
    CHILD: Mummy, where is the half-way point between Earth and Heaven?
(Pause)
It must be really far away.
(Pause)
Do you get to stop for a rest on your way up?

     
    CUSTOMER:
Pride and Prejudice
was published a long time ago, right?
    BOOKSELLER: Yep.
    CUSTOMER: I thought so. Colin Firth’s looking really good for his age, then.

     
    CUSTOMER: We’re having a book burning at our religious group tonight. I need all your books on witchcraft.
    BOOKSELLER: ...
    CUSTOMER: And, as we’re not going to read them, I expect a discount. We’re doing the world a favour by burning them, you know.

     

     
    CUSTOMER: I don’t like biographies. The main character pretty much always dies in the end. It’s so predictable!

     
    CUSTOMER
(with a French accent)
: Where is the cemetery?
    BOOKSELLER: Oh, you go out of the bookshop and turn right ...
    CUSTOMER