So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

I have more books than I have room for. I'm tempted to go "anti-shoplifting". That is, take a bag of books to a used book store, duck behind a tall bookcase, and leave them there before scampering off.

I habitually bring older non classic pulps in to several shops. Yet just go to the proprietor with your bag.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

My boyfriend isn't a reader, either. But he likes to take me to old book stores.

I was found slouched on floor between book shelves with Shopenhauer once, well past our coffee meet up time.
The date broken I owed her a ballet, play or concert. But I chose the Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky. And it was cold and she didn't want to go out. And I cooked a dinner roast with potatoes and carrot cake with a chilled Riesling Kabinett.
Riesling being white and more suited fish, so this failed to resolve matters. All my fault.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The world is unfortunately overloaded with people who think that six million years of human evolution has taken place solely to deliver them to the point where they can b*tch you out for not putting enough butter on their popcorn.

 

[Bushman]

The world is unfortunately overloaded with people who think that six million years of human evolution has taken place solely to deliver them to the point where they can b*tch you out for not putting enough butter on their popcorn.

This reminds me of a favorite saying of mine:

 

[AmateisGal]

The world is unfortunately overloaded with people who think that six million years of human evolution has taken place solely to deliver them to the point where they can b*tch you out for not putting enough butter on their popcorn.

I do not envy you, Lizzie. Working with the public on a daily basis would make me homicidal.

 

[Trenchfriend]

The one CON of our gapless public transportation net in old Germany is, that the AMOUNT of used tickets, thrown all around the streets, is corresponding, bah...

My 30s smalltown is right in the middle of a gapless bus connection net and we have two major bus stop places, next to the other stops.
The one is the central main Busbahnhof next to the "Bahnhof" and the other is the secondary rail stop with highly frequented bus stops next to it.
And we got "linked transport system" with only one basic tariff for single rides, that makes it a handy system. So, our 1887s rail connection is well used, too. So you can imagine, how much ticket find their rest on our streets.

 

[Turnip]

I have more books than I have room for. I'm tempted to go "anti-shoplifting". That is, take a bag of books to a used book store, duck behind a tall bookcase, and leave them there before scampering off.

We’ve got kind of free book shelves for exchanging books mutually and without costs at several locations around here, in supermarkets and several public buildings like town halls, hospitals…where I drop some of my books from time to time.

 

[Trenchfriend]

used two wheeled pull carts to get their groceries home

What do you mean exactly? Shopping trolleys?

 

[LizzieMaine]

At last count I have over 2000 books piled into a five-room 940-square foot house. This leaves me in wonder at the sturdiness of 1910s home engineering. And they make dandy insulation in the winter time.

 

[Turnip]

What do you mean exactly? Shopping trolleys?

The good Heel-Porsche…

 

[Trenchfriend]

@Turnip
And even available in "non-ugly" like this one!
I got the above, it´s the small of my two ones. It's good to have a small and a bigger.

 

[tonyb]

You know you’re losing yet another usage battle when you read in the Atlantic (yes, the Atlantic, fer cryin’ out loud!) “jive” where it should be “jibe,” meaning “consistent with” or “in agreement.”

 

[tonyb]

I have more books than I have room for. I'm tempted to go "anti-shoplifting". That is, take a bag of books to a used book store, duck behind a tall bookcase, and leave them there before scampering off.

My bookcases are groaning as well. Books are stacked sideways atop books shelved the “proper” way. And that’s not counting the scores of coffee table books and the like occupying various horizontal surfaces around here.

Unlikely as it is that I will ever again crack open most of those volumes, I’m not wishing to be rid of them. They aren’t in my way (two adults sharing a bedroom in a three-bedroom house is to thank for that), and they are souvenirs of a sort, reminders of where I’ve been, mentally and emotionally if not physically.

I have no plans of ever moving again, so I expect to be spared the major PITA moving books can be.

 

[tonyb]

The one CON of our gapless public transportation net in old Germany is, that the AMOUNT of used tickets, thrown all around the streets, is corresponding, bah...

My 30s smalltown is right in the middle of a gapless bus connection net and we have two major bus stop places, next to the other stops.
The one is the central main Busbahnhof next to the "Bahnhof" and the other is the secondary rail stop with highly frequented bus stops next to it.
And we got "linked transport system" with only one basic tariff for single rides, that makes it a handy system. So, our 1887s rail connection is well used, too. So you can imagine, how much ticket find their rest on our streets.

I just love you, man. I can’t recall ever before reading such a poetically roundabout expression of disdain for litter.

 

[Edward]

In America, the NPR giveaway canvas totebag fills the same purpose.

Same here. I recall back in the late Seventies and early eighties there were just called 'shopping bags' in the north of Ireland. Adult women always seemed to carry one out doing messages (though the weekly grocery shop came in plastic carrier bags). In our village, there lived a man who was a freelance musician/ music teacher who always carried one. This was unusual for a man at that time, and thus that (and his long hair) saw him (I confess with shame) dubbed by my five year old self and three year old brother "The Ladyman". Which was not, as I recall, intended in insult: we'd just never seen an actual human man in real life with long hair before, and those shopping bags were so culturally gendered at that point....

Of course, tote bags, as they're now known, have become very common as there has been a big push in the last decade to get rid of single-use plastic bags. You can still get plastic carriers (always now biodegradable) in the supermarkets, though by law they are required to charge 30 pence per bag. Most people are switching over to multiple use bags - years behind the rest of Europe, as ever on these things, naturally. Cotton style totes are now as common in the UK on band and theatre merchandise stalls as printed t-shirts, and they are regularly carried by both genders. I have a nylon one which folds up into a pocket-sized, attached pouch that I keep in my work bag for any impromptu message, marvelous thing.

Since the ban of free plastic shopping bags in Hawai’i (all plastic shopping bags, really) everyone is carrying canvas tot bags. Probably a good thing. In Vienna I was always amazed to see how many people used two wheeled pull carts to get their groceries home from the store. Now I’m starting to see them here too.

Very common here in London over the last couple of decades. I suspect they're more common in cities where car ownership is low. We bought our first years ago as an easy way of getting a grocery shop home from over the road, later discovering it also made it viable to go further afield for groceries as well as it meant we could easily get a week's shopping on and off the bus. The sole time I've ever missed having a car in the closing in on a quarter of a century I've lived in London was getting groceries home; the trolley killed that stone dead. Sure, if we had the big lottery win I'd have a nice hobby car, and maybe one of those new VW electric minivans for heading out of town for the weekend, but a car is one moneypit I've been very happy not to need here in London.

From retail workers everywhere, THANK YOU. I worked retail in my younger years, and I'll never do it again. What broke me was when a customer looked like he wanted to punch my lights out for asking if he had a store credit card.

It's amazing how many people think it's clever to snark at retail employees who ask that, or push the offer of the day or whatever, without stopping to realise they are obligated to. I know someone who worked for a big name retailer years ago who was demoted to working in the storeroom because of a reluctance to push paid-for 'extended warranty' arrangements on customers - usually unsuspecting, little old ladies who weren't aware of their rights under consumer protection legislation.

 

[tonyb]

At last count I have over 2000 books piled into a five-room 940-square foot house. This leaves me in wonder at the sturdiness of 1910s home engineering. And they make dandy insulation in the winter time.

I’ve never attempted a count, but I’m guessing my hoard is approaching that number. It’s at least halfway there, I’d wager.

I have friends in the used book business. A woman I was dating going back nearly 40 years once had four used bookstores. (She’s down to one now, last I looked, after the bottom fell out of the bricks-and-mortar used book business and she filed bankruptcy to save what little was left.) Her condo was absolutely lined with books, several thousand volumes, easily.

Other friends, a boy/girl couple, shut down their retail storefront and went entirely online a few years back. That’s a whole ’nother animal, they tell me, much more obscure and esoteric. Selling stuff aimed for a popular audience is more trouble than it’s worth, seeing how the millions of copies already in circulation keep the prices low.

I reall a conversation with one of those friends some years back addressing the effects of e-readers and such on the genuine paper used book trade. He wasn’t concerned about it, he said. When electronic media supplants paper, “real” books will become collectible, even the ones you can’t give away today, he figures.

In recent years I’ve seen books sold by the pound, presumably to decorators and others who have no intention of actually reading them. And I’ve seen book sales with paperbacks a quarter or maybe 50 cents a pop and hardbacks twice that, no matter the title. It’s their last chance before being pulped.

 

[BobHufford]

In recent years I’ve seen books sold by the pound

I worked in a restaurant 40 years ago that was called "The Library Bar & Bistro". We had installed shelving on about every wall and bought vintage books in bulk to line the shelves. After a few weeks of patrons pulling down books to thumb through and leave here and there (or just take home) the restaurant owner decided to pull them all down, drill a hole through them and run a wire from one end of the shelf to the other to prevent the books from being removed. About broke my heart to do that.

My wife has close to 3000 cookbooks. They have taken over every shelf that I had books or nick-knacks on. My stuff is boxed up and in storage.

 

[Bushman]

It's amazing how many people think it's clever to snark at retail employees who ask that, or push the offer of the day or whatever, without stopping to realise they are obligated to. I know someone who worked for a big name retailer years ago who was demoted to working in the storeroom because of a reluctance to push paid-for 'extended warranty' arrangements on customers - usually unsuspecting, little old ladies who weren't aware of their rights under consumer protection legislation.

I worked at a number of retail places as a clerk or sales guy in college and high school. Did Toys R Us as a senior in high school. It was a fun, if past paced place. In sophomore year of college, I worked at Kohls, and then Party City as a second job for a few months during the Halloween season. Kohls was alright. They pushed their store credit cards hard, though, folks who couldn't push them got put on the sales floor (which I preferred anyway). Most folks were okay, except the occasional karen. Same with Party City, though I hated the look of disappointment on a kid's face when I told them we didn't have a certain costume, or costume piece. Eventually I got moved to the customer service position at Kohls when they started having sales floor people pushing credit cards, too. I hated pushing credit cards. I ended up leaving to focus on school more, because I was only doing part time after that.

Moved on to Lowe's for weekends during my last year of college. That was the worst to work at. Between the contractors trying to rip you off up down and sideways, and the regular customers who thought every clerk knew the store like the back of their hand, the customers there were a nightmare. Compounded with that was a store manager who thought that everybody who worked for her existed to answer to her beck and call for the most ridiculous tasks. Oh do I have some war stories from Lowe's. I remember one guy who took his anger about the quality of our Christmas trees out entirely on me... while he was shopping for Christmas trees 3 days before Christmas! Another time our store manager took half an hour to get me a refill on a customer's change, and I gave her an earful in front of the customers about management's lack of professionalism. Got a write-up for "disparaging the company." And all the while contractors managed to always find the lumber or conduit that didn't have pricing... if it was even from our store at all. See, the customer service people, in an effort to keep contractors happy, would regularly accept returns of items from Menards, Ace, and Home Depot... even if it SAID Menards, Ace, or Home Depot on the product. The place was a nightmare to work for. The day I quit, I chewed the manager's head off. She tried stopping me, and all I said was "Oh no, I'm a customer now, and I have complaints!"

TL;DR: I never get mad at the poor McDonald's clerk who asks me if I'm using the mobile app every single time, because I know she has no choice. Now the managers, they're fair game to complain to.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
I find myself telling the frontline workers that I in no way blame them for management’s policies and poor decisions, along with my hopes for them to pass up the chain my frustrations with the company’s ways of doing business.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A little kindness with drive-thru workers goes a long way, especially at this time of year. It's never a good idea to act the jerk when you're the one getting food thru a hole in the wall.