Dorky moments...

So I thought and thought about what story to share, and the one that kept popping up is totally inappropriate for a dork post. Someday I will reveal the shame of the sheep named Jenny, but I'm not ready to do that yet (Best Jen, you hush.)

But I will give you two stories from my tiny Hanford, California Bookstore.

Ours was the closest bookstore to the Naval base in Lemoore. We saw a lot of sailors. My store's good numbers were due in no small part to the pretty and friendly girls I hired to staff my store. We loved them and they loved us and there were certain boys we adored. Best Jen still remembers the super tight faded jeans of (James?) Heidi. They were something--so were his eyes... hmmmm....

right. back to it.

One day we got a couple of lovely Australian fellows. When I say lovely, I mean they looked like volleyball gods. We wanted them hot and sweaty and showing those dimples, and hmm? oh. right. Love God number one was trying to find a book for his Navy host, and asked us to look up the "pair of one." I was sooo happy to be helping him, and I searched frantically for his book. No luck. I was looking it up in books in print, even, which back in the day was--literally-- a set of huge books listing every book in print. It finally dawned on my lust-fogged brain to get him to spell the author.

It turned out that he was looking for "The Power of One" by Bruce Courtenay, a book I had sold a thousand times. I was just so ga-ga over him that I hadn't taken his accent into account for anything but it's lust-inducing qualities.

I was beet red.

Now I'll share a dork moment from my ex husband that I found endearing at the time.

I have always been baby crazy. So when a charming family came into the bookstore, with a moon faced baby in a bonnet, I played with that baby all night. The two older boys were well behaved at eight and four, and the parents were nice enough. That night we re-arranged the entire store, and the next day, this guy kept coming into the store, looking at everything and nothing, and then leaving. Best Jen finally told me she thought he was going to ask me out. I looked up and watched as he picked up a book from the shelf and pretended to read it while listening to us do our schtick, and laughing at all of our jokes. He was standing in what, the day before had been science fiction, but thanks to the shuffle, was now romance. I asked him if he had read anything else by that author, and he looked down at the book he was holding in curiosity which turned to horror.

He did, in fact, ask me out, and as I stood there talking to him it dawned on me why he was so familiar. He was the DAD from the nice family the night before. EEEEWWWW. I promptly told him what I thought of him in no uncertain terms and told him to hit the road.
He eventually convinced me that he had been out with his sister and her kids, and I agreed to go out with him.

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This has been a very weak post from Jenn Factor 10. I hope to post lots of fabulous pictures from my working vacation next week, up to the blazing heat of Redding to care for my mom after her eye surgery. Actually, my mom is horrifyingly self sufficient, so I'm probably going up to save her from a week of chili and corn from my dad. His entire repertoire consists of chili, corn, and bran buds cereal (Actually, he poaches a mean egg, too.).