Sunday, June 7, 2009

My fifteen minutes? (I sincerely hope not, it would have been a waste of 15 minutes,)

Most of you know that I have been "promoted" to fiction lead at B&N. I put that in quotation marks because I am not getting paid more, and I am not technically full-time despite my 8-hour shifts five days a week. But that is not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to relate an odd event that happened on my first day back, while Kelly was training me in the wonderful world of projects.

Kelly was showing me how to do stuff on the computer, when a group of three high school kids came up to us. The girl with the video camera asked, "Would you mind answering a few questions about the book The Shack?" But you have to read it in a Boston accent and imagine gum-chewing. I'm not sure I remember gum-chewing, but I feel like it adds more to the character and the overall scene, don't you?

Kelly and I looked at each other, at the camera, and back to the girl. "Um. Have you read it? I haven't read it."

"Nope."

The girl told us it was okay if we hadn't read it, she'd just ask questions about religion and God. (Side note: The Shack is about a man who goes to a shack and meets God. This is after his daughter is raped and killed. Another side note: They were from Austin Prep. I didn't know girls even went to Austin Prep.)

So, being the kind-hearted soul I am, I volunteered to be the one in front of the camera that day. I will not go into details; I'll just say she asked me about God and whether he has a plan and if everything happens for a reason, yadda yadda yadda. You know the drill.

And so, I will go down in the archives of Austin Prep for years to come as the worker at Barnes & Noble who volunteered to talk about the book The Shack for some seniors in high school. I didn't even have my name in there, and I hadn't even read the book (I was their book expert apparently).

2 comments:

Lori said...

I love that story (your story; not The Shack [haven't read it either])! Haha. It reminds me of the documentary Tibby made in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Molloy said...

I'm actually quite surprised Kelly didn't nix the whole thing. B&N is usually pretty strict about people taking pictures inside the store, let alone filming interviews.

Very, very strange sitch to find oneself in.

However, I'm sure you handled yourself with aplomb and will have at least a few more 15 min flirtations with fame to come.

And, yes, I did just use the word "aplomb."