Wow. If yesterday was great, today was GRRRRRRREAT! as Tony the Tiger would say.

1) Someone bought my favorite movie ever, Pleasantville. Pleasantville is not arty enough for arty people, and not normal enough for normal people, so it's not very popular in any circle, but I love it with all my heart. The people were probably frightened at the response I gave them, but I had to let them know how awesome I thought they were, even if, as I suspected, they were getting it because it's cheap not because it's their end all be all.

2) I think I fell in love with yet another customer (I'm always doing this.) Mulva showed me this Shea butter stuff we have that was totally mangled, and was all, "Who did this to the Shee butter!" and I'm like, "Uh, it's called Shay butter!" with this air of arrogance, the exact same time this guy customer said that. I don't know why, but that really tickled me.

3) I think teenage boys love me. Because I've noticed that of all the people I ring up at reg, they're the ones that take the most to my sarcastic brand of, "Are you sure you don't want the new Kenny Loggins CD?" kind of humor. Today these three high school boys that looked like they listen to Blink 182 got this Blink 182 CD, and totally helped me peer pressure one of their own to get free email coupons from the store.

4) I have apparently become the most clever person in the store, however briefly. This guy called up and wanted to put Lord of the Dance on hold. Just as an offhand comment, Mulva was like, "You should put Lord of the Flies on hold instead." But I was like, "You know those reccomends we have to do?*" and get a devious look on my face. Then I went and actually put Lord of the Flies on hold with Lord of the Dance. It was pretty funny, and I enjoyed the absurdity level, but like... Mulva thought it was hysterical. Seriously, I thought he was going to have a seizure and die. He couldn't stop laughing, and we're both up at registers laughing our heads off, and trying to explain to customers what's so funny/why we have the giggles. I didn't think it was THAT funny, and I could get myself under control, but then he'd just start laughing and it would make me do it too. Then he starts telling Sista about it, and can't even get out what happened he's laughing so hard, and finally takes a break (going to the back room and laughing his head off for several minutes) to compose himself, and we're good. But then he starts telling Hootie about it... I had to like, go elsewhere so he wouldn't start me up again. Then, later, Jersey just randomly walks up to me and tells me I'm awesome, citing the Lord of the Dance/Flies thing as the reason. And I'm like, wondering how he even knows, seeing as how he's stuck all the way out in the cafe. I'm thinking word of mouth must be spreading this like crazy (though later Sista told me she told Jersey).

Then, right before I leave for the night, the guy actually comes to pick up his hold. I was afraid the whole time that like, if Mulva had to check the guy out, he'd have a spasm and horribly offend the customer, but he just explained the whole thing to the customer, who thought it was funny too and all was good.

5) Sista and I went out to dinner. We had actually planned to see Rent, but it's not in theaters anymore. Then we were like, "Let's go see Brokeback Mountain!" but our stupid conservative theaters around here didn't have it, those sons a bitches! It made me mad. I was looking forward to that the whole day. I seriously was.

Then, to make matters worse, in the last couple weeks I've seen nearly every film in theaters that's worth seeing, so there was nothing else. We drove to all the theaters (and the greatest part is on the way to the Palace, I ended up like, 2 miles from some town called Merna and we were all sure that some scene from Deliverance was going to play out with us as the hapless victims. Then, on the way BACK from the Palace, we ended up in Towanda. Sista kept saying, "We're in Towanda! How did you get us so lost?" and I was like, "We're not in Towanda! Towanda's like, by Peoria!" only we really WERE in Towanda).

So instead of giving in and seeing one of the crappy movies, we were like, "We have to go somewhere to hang out." And we thought of coffee places, and the first thing we thought of was The Coffee House which is this stupid crappy coffee place in downtown Normal, and we decided against it, and then we were like "Starbucks?" and turned it down. Then we looked at each other and were like..... "BARNES & NOBLE! Yeah! Fuck yeah! Barnes and Noble!" So, like total traitors, we went to B&N. It was AWESOME. I forgot how much I love it there. Plus, even though I love my coworkers, it's nice to go to some place where no one knows you to look at books without wondering whoss watching.

We had drinks in the cafe (I had my first Chai in a long time and it was delicious). We looked through magazines (I got Cannibis Culture, which is even more boring than High Times, plus I'd seen all the funny ads before) and Sista looked for Heeb, this Jewish magazine, but couldn't find it and ended up with some pop culture mag. In line to get our drinks, we were actually caught cheating on our store by this woman who apparently works with both stores providing stuff for the cafe or something, and she totally caught us. AND she was a professor I had at ISU for music appreciation class. Very small world.

Anyway, and this is pretty hilarious: we had to leave the cafe. Not because we were caught out, but there was another familiar face: Metalhead Eddie. He's this drugged up dude that we all hate at the store, and I guess he must frequent B & N too, because he just walks into the cafe. I saw him first, and I'm like, "Sista! Behind you!" and she's like What? I'm like, "Look! Look!" and she's like.... "It's Metalhead Eddie, isn't it!" and I'm like, "Yes! Yes! It is!" and she's like, "You're joking!" but it was true. So we made our escape from the cafe into the bookshelves.

We had looking through some books, especially the Postsecret book, which they actually have, unlike the deadbeats at our store, which I can't even order it from anymore. Actually, I think there are a lot of books they had that we don't have, and Sista was like, "I'm totally going to use one of these as my reccomend next time!"

I think the B & N staff realized we were employees from a competing store, because I'm not too quiet OR subtle, but they didn't harass us, which was pretty nice. Because I'm pretty sure if any B & N employees tried to come into OUR store and start shit, I'd be pretty irritated.

Anyway, it was great, one of the best nights of my entire life, and I'm glad we didn't just settle for going to some crappy movie because we couldn't get into the one we actually wanted, like I frequently do with some of my other friends. I way prefer doing stupid shit to watching it.

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* If someone puts something on hold, we're supposed to get something similar that we think they'd like and put it on hold too.