I wasn't asleep!

With my new schedule, it's harder to update my blog. Of course I can always do so from work, but then only the blog page is updated, and not my home page -- I can only do that by manually editing the page and FTPing it to the server. And there's no FTP software on the computer at work, yet. But now it's my day off, and I report the following.

Last night I had a sort of kung fu/thriller movie dream. I woke up in the middle of the night and tried to write it down in the dark. When I looked this morning at the notebook, I saw that I had written over a previsouly written page -- rendering both dreams illegible. The only thing I remember clearly is that the dream was set in some kind of company or organization that had at least two levels of indirection for customers, in order to mislead them about the company's real mission (which had something to do with superhero crime fighting or something). The first level was a computer game which the customers were supposed to spend months or years figuring out. But for the really smart customers who finally got to the last level in the game, there was virtual reality sex. And yet virtual reality sex was not the main business of the company, only something else to mislead the customers and keep them from discovering its real activities. Nevertheless, the people who actually worked at the company frequently took advantage of the virtual reality sex themselves, perhaps while waiting around for someone to launch them on some life-saving mission.

At the l.n.c.b., I continue to encounter customers who are amusing or dismaying, or sometimes both. But I think the saddest thing is the "reshelves" shelf. When a customer returns a book, it gets put on the "reshelf" shelf behind the counter and, all things being equal, put back on the shelves at the end of the day. When I see things on that shelf that I've personally sold, it makes me sad sometimes. Like on Monday someone bought a book off the classics shelf, Histories by Herodotus. On Wednesday I saw it had already been returned.

Then there are the customers who seem to think we are a used bookstore. A guy came in Wednesday with four books; no receipt, and they didn't have the characteristic l.n.c.b. bar code sticker on the back cover. Clearly they were books that had been sitting on his shelves for some time, never read. We took three of them. The fourth, I was going to give the guy a refund for as well, but a manager discovered the fact that it was an outdated edition. The transaction took forever because the manager had to look them all up on the system after I had also done so. Then the manager took it upon himself to scold me for doing several things wrong during the whole affair, including letting the guy stand and wait while I took care of other customers during the time the manager was looking up his books. Personally I feel the other customers shouldn't have to wait while some lame-off cashes in some books that probably were never bought at the l.n.c.b.. But according to the manager, we're all just supposed to stand there.

So far on my day off I've accomplished getting a haircut. Later on I'll go to the bank. I might go see a film. Nothing stupendous. We can't afford anything stupendous anyway.