You break it, you buy it

So...my preference for book stores is Barnes and Noble by a nose. Here's why:

About three months ago, my intern (Amelia) and I were holding our weekly staff meeting at the one near our office. [I know it is pathetic that two people need to go offsite to have a staff meeting. But I am a slave to my caffeine and books.] Anyway, we had a fine meeting full of much innovating and entrepreneurering and were headed out of the store.

Amelia stopped to look at a book. It was on a different table from my interests - which are pretty broad - but generally do not include fashion or "what not to wear". So, I moved on to the next table. So to set the scene, we were standing at table one and two in the middle of the store. We were just sort of idly browsing.

Anyway, a lady came up with a tray of lattes. I said, of couse I would love a pumpkin toffee cacao latte with a touch of dark chocolate trouble sauce. However, my hands were full of my meeting notes (which is a zebra patterned notebook that I got at Target for $.33 - a bit of a rip, actually - Big Lots had them for $.25). Anyway, I took my latte and were browsing. Amelia came up and asked if I was ready...and I said, ready...ha ha ha...I'm just getting started. She set her latte on a book. I looked horrified and said - "my god that is a book - the sacred holder of all things known and unknown, felt and unfelt - get that damn latte off there." Perhaps - that's a paraphrase.

Well, I proceeded to the otehr side of the table and reached down for a book. At that exact moment, I had the vision of a humingbird (or something incredibly fast) and I made a slight twitch with my left hand which was balancing my latte cup, my notebook, and my coat. This triggered a chain reaction which included me using the notebook to swat my open faced latte across about ten stacks of books on the table. Amelia laughed very loudly at the sight - drawing some unwanted attention from the Barnes and Noble toughs. I looked downright, dumbass stupified.

I dragged my sorry self to the information desk and humiliatedly related my tale. The man at the desk looked at me and said, "really, let me come and see." He came over to my ground zero - which now had a gathering of squawky young moms in track suits. He said, "Wow!" Then, he preceded to clear approximately one-half of the table because the latte like fluid had slipped down on to the table top and was spreading amongst the crevasses like the Venetian canals. Approximately 70 books were damaged requiring Roger to make about four separate trips to "restock the books" I want to note for my wife - I did not say - I'll pay for that. I simply looked as small as a man wearing a nice black suit - holding a coffee stained zebra patterened notebook and suit coat - can (while his young intern laughs her ass of about three feet behind him). He said, "Don't worry about it. This happens all the time. We'll just send it back to the publishers and tell them that we received a faulty shipment." I smiled. I laughed. I hugged the man. I told him that I was on child five - but my sixth would be named Roger. I openly wept.

Thus, Barnes and Noble is my favorite bookstore. Customer service matters - even when your customer is a clumsy dumbass with a latte all over him.