Tags
borders, crazy, depressed, humor, life, mental, mental-health, opinion, people, pregnant, stuck, work
I worked for Borders Bookstore (in the café) for over three years in two completely different locations, the people I met there are unparalleled to any other individuals I have encountered in life. Maybe that is because it was concentrated crazy, staff and patrons alike.
My first week at Borders #2, I waited on a woman that was about eight months pregnant. She asked me for a small green tea with the saddest eyes I have ever seen. She seemed hollow and broken, like the man she loved had left her pregnant and lonely.
Over the course of a year I saw her once a week, every week, just as pregnant as the week before. She walked around the establishment holding her stomach as if her “baby” would be coming at any moment; still just as broken as she had been that first day we encountered one another.
One God awful day I was asked to work the floor of the bookstore, because I had the misfortune of being the only manager on duty and while I felt I was completely capable of taking charge from behind the café, others (my boss) did not agree. So I walked around the store acting like I knew what I was doing, and while our store wasn’t set up in a way that made it difficult to find books, it wasn’t something I was completely comfortable with.
Perpetually pregnant lady came up to requesting my assistance, her baby bump looked a little smaller that day; she might have been trying new material. “Can you help me find a book?”
“I will do the best I can.” I smiled at her, so uneasy because I honestly had no idea what was wrong with her.
“It is called Twilight Eclipse.” (At the time Twilight was not at all popular or at least not as well known as it is today). I typed it into the computer and the computer informed me that the young adult book would not be in for another month. I explained to her that it had yet to be released and her facial expression deflated.
“Can you help me look for it anyway?”
I knew it was a hopeless cause, but I walked with her to the second floor, into the children’s section where we looked pointlessly for a book that existed, just not for public consumption. We found the Twilight section and of course Eclipse was not there.
She jumped to her feet, struck by an inspired idea. “It’s not in this section.”
“No, it isn’t out yet!”
“I am sure it has just been moved, it is probably in the religion section! Come on, I will show you.”
So we walked around the religion section, and again I knew nothing of these stories but when I did find out what Twilight was about I laughed like mad. The religion section, yeah!
We never found Eclipse, imagine that.
I was extremely frustrated and yet she had wasted quite a lot of my “on the floor” time, so I was also thankful. When she left the store I went to a friend (Kira) explaining the situation, and the crazy craziness of her person. Kira told me that Perpetually pregnant lady was in fact once pregnant, also out of her wits – crazy, because of that her parents made her give the baby away… and there she stays in her mind, stuck between a life that should have been and the life that is. Haunted by the child she would never get to keep, so she goes back to a time when for a little while she was happy, and I wished like hell that stupid Eclipse book had already been released, just a little bit of joy in an otherwise cruel unbending world.
fake baby bump anyone?
-ducksoup- 