Yes, I know it's been a week since I've updated...

Seriously, nothing is happening right now. There are currently no movies I'm jonesing to see in the theaters. My last Netflix rental sucked. I am, however, listening to a really cool cd by a band called Grizzly Bear. The cd is titled Yellow House. It's sort of trip folk...kinda. It's really mellow and sort of surreal. I don't know that I'd listen to it in the car, but it's perfect for at home.

Rather than dull you with the usual stories of unboxing books, I will tell you of a customer phone call I fielded today. I picked up the call and an older woman says to me "Your screen won't let me enter my security number. Why?"

Thank goodness I speak Crazy Elderly Person. I determine that she is talking about the website and she is referring to the security number on her credit card. I try and get her to look for the help options on the site, but she can't seem to place them. I ask if she's tried backing out of this part of the order and starting the paying process again. I ask if she tried entering the number more than once. She says she's done it six times and it keeps saying it is incorrect. I ask if she's entered the correct number, and she swears she has. I tell her, it must be something with the page itself, some sort of glitch, and I can't fix that on my end since we at the store have NOTHING TO DO WITH THE WEBSITE.

She asks if I can order the books at the store. I say, sure I can and ask her for the first title. Well...she didn't note down the titles as she was browsing so she needs to back out of the order and get the list.

I always get scared when they use the word "list." Anyway, she says she's going to do that and then call back. She asks if she should ask for me when she calls back. I explain that anyone who works here can place the order, it doesn't necessarily need to be me. Of course, I'm trying to make sure she doesn't ask for me as I can see where this is going. I hang up and think that is the end of it.

A good 20 or so minutes go by so I think I'm safe. The phone rings and I answer and, you guessed it, it's her. She doesn't realize she's already spoken to me so she starts to go into her thing. She says she "called the office" and the girl there told her it was okay to order over the phone. I don't bother to point out it was me.

Now, from the previous conversation I know she has two authors she's looking for. Boy was I off. She has 5 authors for a total of 13 books. Crap.

I note them down then put her on hold to go looking. I find 10 of them in the store and will have to order the other 3. I place the order. Oh, she wants them shipped to her home. I get that set up, but the printer at this particular computer isn't working. I copy down the order number, but leave off a digit so when I try to ring it up it won't work. I put her on hold again and go to another computer to print the order, because we don't have printers at the cash registers.

I come back up to the front and ring up that order first. I enter in her credit card number, and because I'm not actually swiping the card I have to enter THE SECURITY NUMBER! Great. She reads it off to me and, no surprise, it's not correct. She gives it to me again. I ask her if her card is American Express. She says yes, and I tell her the number is on the front of the card.

"The front?"

Yes, the front.

"Oh, the number I gave you was on the back. Try this number..."

That worked. Guess we know why the number you were trying online kept getting rejected.

"Well, I've never tried it online before."

ARRGHHHH!!!! During the first phone call, she'd sworn up and down she'd used this card online at our site before.

Of course, it now hits me that because she mixed up the numbers, I have spent all this time with her instead of dealing with the boxes I have still piled up in back.

I ring up the books from within the store and remember that I need to ask if she has a membership card. She doesn't and asks me about it, decides she wants to get one and oh, yeah, add on a gift certificate for her niece.

I will say, she was pleasant all the way through this whole ordeal, which makes taking the time to help that much more tolerable. But, I also need to mention that I spent 55 MINUTES HELPING HER!!! I picked up the phone at 5:50 (as soon as I knew it was her I noted down the time) and I got back to my desk at 6:45. I sure hope she liked our hold music.