Bookseller With Mace staggered into the bookstore, with an expression on her face that kept any customer from asking any questions. The customers looked a bit ragged as well.

A manager walked up to her, as she noted an empty slot on the bestseller shelves.

"Dude, you're fifteen minutes late."

"I got here as quickly - "

"I know. You're the first closer to arrive. We're out of The Answer again, by the way."

( cut for length )

[for those of you who haven't seen the earlier episodes and want to (it's been a while), just click on "bwm" in the tags or at the bottom of the entry]

Bookseller With Mace drove into the parking lot and sighed. It was packed. From somewhere past the Untrustable Burger Joint, someone was leaning on their horn. Judging from the number of cars circling her usual parking area, the altercation was right where BWM would end up parking. She weighed her options, and drove past Untrustable. She stopped for the two SUVs that cut her off at the drive-thru entrance and turned left at the first line that included employee parking. She turned on her blinker to claim the first free space, only to grit her teeth and watch as someone else beat her to it. There were no other spots in that row, but she saw a space in the next one. As she turned toward that one, the coworker she couldn't see behind a pickup truck pulled in, and shrugged apologetically when she saw BWM. The third row finally yielded a space that yet another driver honked at her for taking.

There were two drivers having a loud argument in the next row. Over a parking space. BWM glanced their way and decided that they were unlikely to resort to violence, so she ignored them and started on the long walk to the store. No one wanted to let her cross the street. She made a run for it as soon as there was a break in traffic. The driver who almost hit her kindly leaned on the horn to let her know that they had just pulled out of another row without looking for pedestrians. BWM ignored him as well.

It was easier to cross right in front of the store as there was a fire truck blocking the cars. The fire fighters didn't seem to be really worried about the situation, so BWM walked past them. One woman caught her eye as she walked in the door. "What's going on?"

BWM shook her head. "I don't know. I just walked in the door." This should have been obvious, as she was carrying her tote bag and didn't have her name tag on, but whatever. The obvious escaped many customers.

"But I thought you worked here."

"I do, but I'm not on duty yet." She walked on without letting the woman continue on to the line that if she worked there, she should know what was going on. She wasn't in the mood.

There was a single bookseller at the information desk surrounded by a crowd. He waved at BWM then returned to the customer who was standing in front of him. BWM left him to the task at hand instead of asking about the fire truck.

The manager on duty was standing in the back hallway and told her what happened. It seems that someone was replacing the alarm box in receiving and had forgotten to disable the old one before removing it. Lovely. He also had the news that thunderstorms were expected that evening. Thunderstorms. The day before Easter. "No wonder the place looks like a riot zone," BWM commented.

"At least it will clear out when it starts raining," the MOD pointed out.

Going out to the sales floor felt like taking on a suicide mission. BWM didn't even make it out of the back hallway before she had her first customer. At least he was nice about letting her clock in before she helped him. While walking him to the biography section, she was interrupted by another. She finished with the first, and took the second up to the bestsellers to hand her a requested copy of Million Little Lies. She smailed and nodded as the customer made the required lame joke about the controversy surrounding it, then turned around to see the woman who had stopped her when she walked in.

"I've been waiting here for fifteen minutes for you to come back to answer my question."

"I'm sorry. I hadn't realized you were waiting. Apparently they ran into some trouble with the alarm-"

The woman cut her off. "You told me you would be right back." That was the second lie, and BWM found herself reaching for the small cylinder she kept in her pocket.

"I'm sorry you misunderstood what I said, but-"

"I didn't misunderstand anything, young lady. You should show morAAAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!"

BWM put her Mace back in her pocket and walked away, astonished as always that no one else ever noticed when she did that.

It was hours later that the rain came with a loud rumble and a whoosh that BWM could hear from where she was trying to cram another book into International Cooking. The crowds and piles of reshelves finally started dwindling and the booksellers were grateful for the long-awaiteed reprieve. BWM thought that, just maybe, she wouldn't have another occasion that night to use her Mace.

Silly BWM.

She was helping another customer when a man approached her and asked her quietly, almost shyly, where he could find pictures of naked women.

Rather taken aback by the question, BWM simply pointed out where the Photography section was, then continued with her previous customer.

"Do you get that question often," the other customer asked.

"Nope. That was the first time for that one."

Naturally, when she went back to the information desk, the creepy guy was back.

"I couldn't find what I was looking for. Can you just come to the section with me and help me find some good pictures?"

Not going to happen. "The photography section is right over there on the wall. I'm sure you can find what you want over there if you look."

"But I just need some help. Won't you just help me find some really hoAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!"

"Sorry to ruin your fantasy, creep," BWM told hem, as she grabbed the last of the reshelves.

By the time she was down to the last book, he had left the desk. Heaving a sigh of relief, BWM leaned over to place the last book on a table. And then she felt a hand grab her rear end.

Mace already in hand, BWM whipped around to confont the bastard again ... and looked down. Into the eyes of a two-year-old child.

"Ohmigod I'm so sorry." A woman appeared from out of nowhere and grabbed the child. She continued to apologize as BWM tried to reassure her that it really wasn't a big deal.

When that encounter was over, BWM looked around the nearly empty store, looked at her watch (still an hour left) and sought out the MOD.

"Can I get out of here?" she asked him.

"On one condition."

"OK."

"Give me your Mace."

She stared at him in shock, and handed it over. She watched him walk away with a growing sense of dread. She really didn't want to lose her job. Then she heard a familiar scream.

The MOD returned and handed her the canister. "Thanks. There was a creep pestering Cool Girl about naked pictures."

Still reeling a little bit, BWM quietly clocked out, gathered her totebag, and left.

Near her car, two soaked men stood in the rain arguing about a parking space.

She ignored them again.

"You maced a customer??!!!" Bookseller With Mace's coworker was having a bit of a difficult time accepting that it had really happened. "I mean, I get it because I remember what it was - you MACED a customer????" BWM could understand where she was coming from.

Our bookseller had failed utterly at coming up with an excuse for showing up in the receiving area (unforgivable, really, considering how many legitimate reasons could have worked) and so she had blurted out the truth to her friend. She really had meant to keep quiet. There was no way to know what would happen to her newly found mission if too many people found out. Of course, it wouldn't take much of a grapevine for something like the use of pepper spray to spread through the whole place.

"So," gulp, "what did the customer do?"

"Which one?"

"Dear Lord."

So BWM told the whole story.

As she came to the end of the story, BWM heard an all-too-familiar page. "Additional bookseller to information." Manager on duty didn't add "now" to the page, but might as well have. She turned to her friend. "So, do you think they've called the police on me yet?"

"I doubt it. We're kinda short staffed tonight."

So, BWM gathered her courage and returned to the sales floor. And the manager who made the page asked BWM where she had been.

"I, uh, had to, uh, check on an order for a customer on the phone." That was articulate. "Uh, we're waiting on one more title."

"Oh, OK. Can you take this up front for me?" The manager handed her a book with a hold slip rubber-banded to it. And then she walked away. BWM was absurdly disappointed at the lack of reaction to the fact that she had answered the Call of Destiny so dramatically. Of course anything with such use of capital letters has to be dramatic.

BWM didn't make it up to the front desk with the book on the first try, because there is a rule that you can't walk up to the front desk without a customer stopping you. The rule is sometimes broken, but never when there are two or more booksellers at the information desk gossiping. The customer who stopped her wanted to know where the restroom was. Not a difficult question to answer; BWM simply had to point the way to the correct corner of the bookstore. As she turned around, she saw two booksellers gossiping at the information desk. She pointed the way and turned around again.

She took two steps. "Miss, you work here don't you?" Another customer jumped toward her and made a show of looking at her nametag. "Ah good, you do. I'm looking for a book." Long pause, then laughter. BWM gritted her teeth. "Here, let me find the piece of paper I wrote it down on."

BWM told the storm building within to calm down as the woman started digging around in her huge purse. "Why don't we go back to the information desk?"

"No, no dear. I know it's right here." She pulled out a wallet that was so full of scraps of paper that it barely folded enough to fit in the purse. "I think I put it in my wallet." Several scraps of paper fell to the floor. "Oh dear, I probably need those." As she bent over to pick them up, still more fluttered down. BWM helped her pick them up and finally convinced her to walk back to the desk with her.

When they got back to the information desk, BWM pushed aside the other two booksellers, stood behind one of the terminals, and waited for the woman to find the right slip of paper. No amount of pleading could convince her to give up anything about the book until she found the right slip of paper. After all, it had all the details. "Maybe I left it in my car. Could you wait here while I run out to my car." Before BWM could say anything, she changed her mind. "No, I know I put it in here somewhere." She continued rooting around. "Oh, here it is." At last.

Before the lady could even begin to read off the table, another man leaned over the counter beside BWM. "Excuse me, I have a question." The two coworkers had, of course, left.

"I'm sorry, but I'm helping another customer," BWM gestured toward the woman, "I'll be with you just as soon as I help her."

"But I'm just looking for one book."

"It'll be just a moment."

"But I'm just looking for one book." BWM decided not to point out that he had just said that and it hadn't changed her answer. "Can you just tell me where it would be?" She opened her mouth to say something and he took that as a cue to keep talking. "It's a recent book and it's about how religion has affected history and the way the world is now and all this crap in the Middle East. Do you know where it would be?" This was more specific than the all to common request for the nonfiction department, but not by much.

"That could be half the store. If you give me just a moment I can look up the title for you." She knew even before she said it that there was little hope for a title. Her first customer was keeping quiet. That was too bad, since a show of impatience might have convinced this guy to shut up. Well, Fate could always step in....

"But can you just tell me where it would be? I looked in Current Affairs but it's too big a sectAAAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH."

Bookseller With Mace turned to the first customer again and, very politely, asked for the title.

Bookseller with Mace was ready to go back out to the sales floor, now armed with the weapon that would make her a legend in her time. The coworker who had caught her grabbing the small can had failed to convince her to return the mace, and had finally accepted that fate had declared that our bookseller with the storm grey eyes would have the means of vengeance, and that twenty buck was enough payment to cover the loss of the item. BWM was just glad that it had been enough money. Destiny or no destiny, she had to have enough money to buy lunch.

And now she was back at work, and the customers were about to face a danger they could never have seen coming.

Her first customer when she returned to information set off alarms right at the start. "This may be an impossible search," she told BWM. As BWM knew from many such encounters, this meant trouble. "Well, I saw this book in a bookstore several years ago, so I know you should have it on the shelf. It's a list of marketing executives of all the major corporations in the country and I know it exists and is published by MegaBooks. I think the editor is John something. Or maybe Jason. Something like that." BWM briefly considered macing her right then, but decided to give her a chance. She tried a keyword search on "marketing executives". No luck. Still no luck on the other keyword searches that came to mind. At the prompting of the customer, she tried the doomed search of "all the companies in the country" then "people in charge of buying products at major corporations". Without the shopper's suggestion, she tried "impossible search I have to try for this crazy person" and still came up empty.

The customer was starting to show signs of great impatience.

"Well, do a search on stuff that you had several years ago."

"I'm sorry, but there is no way to do that kind of search on our system."

"But I know you have it! I know it was published by MegaBooks. Do a search on them. They can't have that many books out. I don't want to have to use the website with this information because they charge thousands of dollars a year."

"I'm sorry, but there is no way to run a search on publisher alone." BWM didn't even bother mentioning that Megabooks was the largest publisher in the country and had thousands of titles in print, or that someone runnig a website that could make that much money would jealously guard their information.

"Well can you try?" The shopper's voice was full of scorn.

"The search engine will not do that kind of search."

"Well, can you call someone who knows what they're doiAAAUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"

Feigning calm, BWM pput the can of mace back in her pocket and started walking back to the breakroom as the customer screamed and cursed behind her. The bookseller pulled off her nametag and just kept walking as people started running toward the woman yelling at the desk that she had been attacked. "Just stay calm and pretend eveything's all right" she kept telling herself.

Then someone grabbed her by the arm. "Oh, you work here, don't you?" BWM pulled back her arm and tried to come up with a good way to explain that she was about to be fired and that it might be a good idea for the man to seek assistance from someone else.

"Could you make a copy if page 27 in this" he waved a magazine at her.

"Uh, we aren't allowed to do that," she stammered. This was just unbelievable.

"But there's no way I'm going to pay for the entire thing when I just need one AAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"By the way, don't get my attention again by grabbing me," Bookseller With Mace told him as she continued walking.

The previous post is inspired by actual events, even to the point of seeing a coworker's keychain with a can of mace (sadly, she would not let me borrow it). I told a few others at the store about my inspiration, and I already have a proofreader for any book that comes out of it. Coming up with this marks the first time in too long that I have laughed that much at the ridiculous situations I run into every day at work. Hope you enjoy.

Warning to all who read this: I am very tired and VERY punchy.

It was just another Day after Christmas to most of the oblivious shoppers flooding the store. Little did they know that danger lurked behind the innocent face of the squeaky-voiced bookseller behind the counter of the tiny information desk. If they looked deep into her eyes, or even really noticed her beyond the possibility of help in finding the item they sought, they may have seen the darkness in her that grew with every encounter with the clueless. They may have sensed the storm that was about to break.

But they didn't know that she had been pushed to the very edge of sanity, that her fate was about to take over. They had no clue that her world had just been torn apart by a loss that was beyond their comprehension. They didn't know that she had finally lost all patience for the foolishness that so many of the customers had brought into the store, or that the alarm on the side door that they whined about had caused a migraine to grow behind those storm-grey eyes (please allow this bit of vanity - I have always like the idea that I have storm-grey eyes). They did not know that it is just plain stupid to walk into a bookstore the size of a football field and ask where the non-fiction department is.

First there was the customer who called about a possible exchange. Our intrepid bookseller didn't even see the import of the conversation until he told her that he knew the item he wanted had a strict on sale date the next day and he wanted it the day he called. She began to sense the monster within her when he wouldn't accept that she couldn't sell an item before the on strict on sale date, even for an exchange. The roaring in her heart only got louder when she checked the computer only to find out there was no sale date, that the item was simply not in the store yet and the customer still insisted that the exchange happen that day. It actually helped forestall the inevitable when the customer hung up on her after declaring he would go elsewhere because she refused his request.

Then there was the customer who asked where non-fiction was. Little did he know, three others had already asked the same question. Those who came before him realized that they would have to accept that the store was not so simply categorized when they were told this and they were taken to where they needed to go when they offered more about the books they sought. This customer was different. He asked two other booksellers where nonfiction was despite all attempts to explain to him his stupidity. He refused to accept that he would have to give more information. The monster began roaring again.

With shaking hands, the bookseller with the storm-grey eyes answered the phone again, trying to quiet that which raged within her. The caller hung up as soon as she said the greeting she always said. It was very nearly the last straw.

She thought she was safe when she went on her lunch break. She did not realize that her destiny awaited her in the breakroom. The time had come. The time that fate had been waiting for was finally at hand. The hour that would spell the end of life as it had previously been known had arrived. Nothing would ever be the same.

It seemed innocent enough. It was after all, a keychain that a coworker had left behind on the breakroom table. There was nothing about it that was extraordinary to the ordinary observer. Even our bookseller would have thought nothing of it if she hadn't been pushed to the ragged edge of sanity itself. If her grief hadn't sapped the strength that had kept her from going mad the other Christmas seasons she had worked. But this day was different. This day she saw the object for what it was - the instrument of fate and the one thing that could change to world. The monster had finally taken over and she would finally become the avenging hero for sales clerks everywhere.

The coworker who had forgotten the keychain arrived too late to stop the carnage that would follow. For our bookseller had finally become...


BOOKSELLER WITH MACE


The reign of terror had begun.