Bookstore Etiquette

Sometimes if you go to a bookstore on a Friday evening, you may get lucky and can have the place to yourself because everyone else is doing other things.

Of course if you live on the East coast, specifically in Pa., then you have been inundated with rain over what appeared to be the last 48 days, so you probably would not find a trip to the bookstore on a Friday night on the top of your list. Just getting in the boat and heading out to the market would be nice I guess.

I opted for the bookstore to see what a few authors had to say about anxiety.
At the end up my trip I would find that I also may need an opinion on anger management!

Initially, it turned out to be a really good bet; very few people were there and it appeared as though I had the entire cafe' to myself, except for a few odd looking characters that sometimes frequent the place.

Then all of a sudden two middle-aged women arrive with their coffee talking about their family members' problems. You could hear their conversations easily, in part, because the place wasn't crowded. This should have created some awareness for them to tone it down just a little. Maybe I am getting cranky in my old age, but I was tempted to do something an old professor friend of mine used to do when we would go out to lunch; he would have asked them to "keep it down a little". I will never forget him asking someone not to smoke in an area designated for smoking! "It's very hard for me to breathe", he explained. I was shocked.

Within 15 minutes, this guy's cell phone rings with the most annoying tone I have ever heard. Okay, I will admit that I probably heard it before, since it sounded like one of the basic ring tones you get when you buy the phone. I turn my phone on "manner mode" - I hate saying "vibrate" because it sounds a little embarassing.

But this guy had his volume up as loud as possible. He took the call with, "John's Auto!!" or some kind of repair shop and I'm thinking 'wha' the f_ _ k kind of moron is this?' Who answers his cell phone in a bookstore as if it is his office? I swear, I wanted to take his phone and throw it on the floor and then crush it with my foot. (anger management issue?)

The problem that I had - I turned around and saw others looking at him too) - with this tool was that he didn't care. He did not care that there were other people in the bookstore, the cafe'; all he cared about was his freakin' call that he had to take.

To be sure, those two women didn't care either. As far as I was concerned, they thought they were home or at a bar or something.

And that is the problem with people nowadays; they just don't care. It is all about me, me, me...me first, it's what I want, when I wanted it...my needs and who freakin' cares about anyone around me. If I need to kill time and wait for a phone call, I will not go to a bar, hell, I'll just sit in a quiet bookstore and disturb other people.

Maybe these people should stay home or go to a bar. Or, maybe the bookstores should sell alcohol. Better yet, why not install televisions and video games. Next time, maybe I'll stay home.