The Cost of Books

All forms of entertainment are expensive, but it blows my mind the way people talk about the price of books! I had a woman come in a few days ago to buy some books for her child. As she comes up to the register she looks at me and says (with a very rude tone of voice). "This is the reason that illiteracy is so high in this country, books are so expensive!" Although I know while working in customer service I should hold my tongue in this case I couldn't resist stating my opinion... I smiled at her and said "Well, in all fairness children watch more TV than ever and a month of cable is more than you just paid for these books!" She rolls her eyes at me and says "Yeah, well with those choices I will happily pay for the cable!" Now all I can think to myself is the fact that our prices aren't the reason for kids not reading, it's women like her who would rather spend money on cable than books for her children.

The other thing that drives me CRAZY that happens all the time is when couples come in who have just been to the theater... the happened especially a lot when "The Blindside" came out. Now, I myself really like this story, but the people coming into my store just blew my mind. They would say to me "We just got done watching this and want to read the book... do you have it?" I would take them to the book and they would see the 15 dollar price tag. "Oh my gosh... that is so expensive!" They would be astonished.... and while I never said anything to these people I just wondered how they had come from sitting for two hours and paid twenty dollars or more for both of them to be there but yet our 15 dollar book they can read over and over again and loan out to more people is expensive...

No... books are not cheap but compared to other forms of entertainment they are very very much so worth it!!

And that is my relieving of work related frustration! : )