THE WAY THINGS ARE GOING, THEY'RE GONNA CRUCIFY ME

A little Texas woman came up to me at work, today, with a big complaint. She was furious because her 10 year old son had come into our store, with his babysitter, and purchased a book called When Cats Assassinate. It's a farcical picture book about cats avenging themselves against their historical rivals - dogs. I was familiar with this book, because I had leafed through it before for chuckles. Kinda sick. Kinda funny. The cat on the cover looks just like Rerun.

"Is this the kind of book a 10 year old boy should be reading?!" she asked. Apparently, he had taken it with him to school and it was confiscated by a teacher who freaked out: sent him to the school counsellor! Oh what kind of sick world do we live in where people can imagine cats firing dogapults (get it?) or rigging doggie doors with guillotines? She threatened to get a coalition of Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians to come down to our store and picket against Borders! (Well, it's a free country, go ahead!) Do we normally sell these kinds of things to children?. "Well, we normally rely on the children's guardians to make the judgement on these matters," said I. "Someone probably thought the babysitter was a family member or trusted friend." She assured me that this particular babysitter would no longer be watching over her child. I offered to return the book, but she didn't have a receipt, so all I could do was give her store credit. She had concealed the scandalous tome in a big manilla envelope, and when she removed it from its anonymous wrappings, it was like it was something dangerous - a time bomb or something. She asked my name and then, after I told her, wrote it down on the big envelope.

Okay.

She then asked me to look through the book and tell her if I, personally, thought this was the kind of thing little children should be reading. There were lots of pictures of dogs in the cross-hairs while cats draw a bead on them, cats leaping up out of a plate of dog food - armed to the hilt. Things like that. I tried not to laugh. Then I apologized (from the bottom of my heart) for all the trouble the book had caused her and her kid at school, and promised her I would let my so-called superiors know all about it.

I gave her the store credit and she asked me, "Where do you keep The Chronicles of Narnia?"

Narnia.

In which animals die all over the place. Santa Claus gifts the kids with various and sundry weapons of mass destruction. And, in the big battle at the end, bloody death is inflicted upon one and all by Aslan --- a --- great --- big --- CAT!

But it's a Christian book, so it's okay.

Upon browsing through the thick C.S. Lewis opus, the woman changed her mind about using her store credit on something so daunting, saying (and I quote), "My son is a few years behind on his reading lessons".

I swear it's true.

To be fair to Texans and Baptisits (and all those wonderful people) I should write this epilogue:

Two little old ladies in polyster pants with beehive hair-dos (one of them bearing a tacky Texas-sized cross on a big chain around her neck) approached me and asked, "Does Borders carry that book about the 5oth Anniversary of Playboy magazine?"

Here we go again, I thought.

"You mean the one in the bland wrapper?" I asked (biting my lip).

"No, honey," they said. "The one with the naked people. We want naked people."

"Look no further," I said. "I'm your man."

I loved these women. They kept talking about sex. And Hugh Hefner. And how they wished they could've worked for him. "You shoulda seen me in my day," said one of them.

And they looked like my grandmothers.

Kind of a weird association ... but they were so funny!

But when they checked out, they did not get the Playboy book.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Not enough naked people in it," they said.

Ah ... life.

TODAY'S QUOTE:
"To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind."
- Pearl S. Buck