Thursday, February 19, 2009

Wowsie Wowsie Woo Woo


This is exactly how I felt today...like a Schleprock!

This morning was filled with the hope that I could unload all of the books I didn't want at a used bookstore here in Vegas. See, back in PA and Ohio, they have a great place called Half Price Books where they'll buy anything, anytime. It's also handy for locating hard to find books, CDs, DVDs, etc.

However, they don't have that here...

It was a good thing I contacted the two major used bookstores out here before loading up the car with 4 large boxes of books. The first place I called asked what kind of books I had. When I told them fiction, nonfiction and things of that ilk, the employee stated that they don't usually buy fiction books and were looking for tomes on military history. Sadly, I only had a huge collection of Himalayan Occult guides and, therefore, was completely out of luck. It only figures that places in Vegas would be looking for non fiction books and things of that nature since everyone is so grounded in reality out here...

The second place (much lauded for being the best used bookstore in the city) said that there wasn't enough in the budget to buy books. Ok, that I can completely understand in this economy. However...I've been in that place before. Many of the shelves were barren. What is hard for me to grasp, though, is a business turning down the exact product that they sell. Wouldn't you think that the more diversity you have to offer in terms of what the public wants, the more sales you would have? Maybe I'm crazy that way...

So, as a result, I now have to spend a great deal of money to ship those books back home, costing me much more than I had originally intended.

Later I went to purchase some more boxes. Of course I bought the wrong size since that's how my day was going and had to return those as well in exchange for smaller ones.

After my friend and I grabbed some lunch, I was driving out of the parking lot and was approaching a stop sign. Not only did I stop for that, but also a pedestrian who was crossing the street. Since I know that drivers out here aren't the best in the world, I always am careful to watch who's coming the other way. No one was.

That is, until some miscreant in an expensive car came barreling toward me, insisting that he had the right of way. I would have hated to tell him had he wrecked into me that he would have been at fault since he would have hit the rear of my car. It wasn't the fact that he was coming toward me...it was the fact that he actually hit the gas as he approached me.

Honestly, the way my day was going, he would have been extremely sorry if a fender bender ensued.

I guess I just don't understand why people feel a sense of entitlement to do whatever they please out here without the thought or caring of another human. Perhaps that's why I just can't connect with people from the West or Southwest.

As an interesting footnote on the entitlement observation...Yoko suddenly decided that her trip to the hospital after an accident she had late last year (while she fell asleep at the wheel due to taking painkillers, mind you) wasn't really up to snuff and, as a result, is planning on filing not one, but FOUR, lawsuits. I guess she started pointing fingers out of the blue when she realized she's running low on cash.

Again...that's the "get rich quick" mentality that people seem to suffer from out here.

*Sigh*...17 more days

2 comments:

Fire said...

Wow Sean, the day from hell to be sure. Maybe you should just stay in bed til you have proof things will get better.

Maybe you'll be able to sell the books in PA and recoup some of the money you spent to ship them home.

I'm not sure why you thought people in Vegas would read anything besides Self-help and Get Rich Quick books though.

As for Yoko, well I wish her good luck with that. No doubt she'll find a lawyer to take her case...only to have the lawsuits thrown out....money spent for nothing.

Wait you stopped for a pedestrian? No, no, no, Sean, pedestrians are to be hit, after all it's their own fault for being in the way in the first place. Come here to Quebec, we'll show you how to drive properly...if you want to survive.

Yeah that sense of entitlement..gotta love it. Usually it's connected to having lots and lots of money and having lots of "people" to get you what you want. My friend was almost hit by this car at work when a car almost went through a stopsign - right in front of the hospital we work at. When she told him off he replied...wait for it...."I'm a doctor here" Yeah like doctors get to ignore stop signs. Like to see him try that with a traffic cop.

Hugs Sean...only 16 more days now..

Skitch said...

I'm enriching my life in Vegas...

I'm getting the hell out of here...already enhancing my way of life immediately with that maneuver!

:D