I need to invest in better footwear. After my first day of retail perils and escapades, I came to terms with a notion that until now eluded me completely: practicality may just in fact surpass fashion when it comes to footwear. Thank you, Indigo, thank you for ushering me into a new era of arch supported adulthood. I feel as though I have undergone a rite of passage… now I just need to act on this new discovery. But who am I kidding? I’m MP, and therefore will continue to wear my cute yet slightly uncomfortable after 8 hours of standing shoes because Heather Reisman won’t let me wear Birkenstocks or Keds to work. Dresscode… does… not… compute.

At any rate, my day amongst the books and pages of the Ideas section of Indigo brought about several rather interesting encounters. The first occurred when I was leisurely strolling through the History section on my way to locate some tarot cards for a misunderstood teenager of the Yorkdale variety. I was stopped mid eye-roll by an elderly fellow who seemed rather perplexed while he blankly ogled book spines under the harsh lights of Indigo. “Hey, you work here, right?” I approached rather hesitantly due to my rookie status and inability to multitask. “Me? I do. What can I help you with?” He proceeded to voice is dissatisfaction with the jumbled and out of order history section. Middle Eastern History was flowing into Jewish History, and there was a rogue Mayan book right in the middle. Basically, this old guy reamed me out for about 15 minutes until I interjected and told him I would inform the appropriate overheads as to this mix up. This seemed to satisfy the old grump, but he had more to say. He proceeded to perform a 20 minute monologue about the importance of books. Now, being in a bookstore, I appeased this Lear-Fool and agreed with him whole-heartedly… until he started spouting notions of isolation and how all human relationships should be replaced with books. “A book will never hold anything back. Never. Complete honesty; the only real honesty there is. Your best friend? Even your best friend will keep something from you. Not necessarily to hurt you, but to keep you safe. But a book? A book is real.” And so ends the tale of the lonely book man in the history section.

Later on I was wandering through the Self-Help section and found another older gentleman frantically searching the shelves for something. I asked him if he needed any help. He flinched slightly, and turned to look at me. He said nothing for brief a moment, and then pointed his hand at me and said, “I know your face.” I really didn’t have much of a response. “How do I know you? I’m sure I know you. But I can’t know you. I don’t know you.” I just kind of stood there thinking of ways to leave this crazy guy with his Dr. Phil books and the like, but he just kept reeling about knowing me. In the end he decided that it must have been in a past life, and that he didn’t need my help. He was just browsing. Browsing for self-help books. Doesn’t that seem kind of weird? He must just figure SOMETHING is wrong, and that the right book will let him know what it is and try to fix it. It just seems to me that if you’re gonna be in the self-help section, you’re probably pretty sure of what it is your self needs help with. It’s not really a browse-able genre. But that’s just me. And I’m MP.