Sighting at Chapters that made me giggle :)

[tollbaby]

So I went for my annual book binge at Chapters (week after Christmas it the best time to get stuff really cheap). The kids and I are heading toward the children's section with two baskets already full... we walk by an older gentleman who has his arm held out and is snapping his fingers saying something nearly incomprehensible. On the other side of us is an employee busy shelving books.

SC: *garbled unintelligible babble*
Employee: *busily shelving books*
SC: (snapping fingers furiously) *GARBLED UNINTELLIGIBLE BABBLE*
Employee: (looks up) I'm sorry.... did you just call me "staff"???
SC: YES!!! STAFF!!!! Come here!
Employee: Seriously? (laughs incredulously) You just called me STAFF?
SC: (meekly) Yes. I'm sorry... I just need some help.

Me & kids: LOL!!!!!

It was hilarious The employee and I exchanged this glance that just said "WTF? Oh well, at least it was funny" and then I walked on LOL Guy was just standing in one spot, imperiously snapping his fingers and expecting that everyone would understand what he wanted. Once the employee picked up on "staff", I realized that's what the old guy had been yelling... but seriously, who does that???

[Chromatix]

Staff, n.

1) A stout, long walking stick. In fantasy fiction, may be used by a powerful wizard to focus his powers.

2) A particular type of railway token for single-line working. Used with interlocked electric token machines and ground frames.

3) (collective) Employees manning a store or other venue.

[tollbaby]

I'm perfectly aware of what it means. We just found it funny because of all the ways the guy could have chosen to seek help, standing in place and yelling "STAFF" was his preferred method. Staff is a collective noun, indicating the ensemble of employees of an establishment, it's not something you call a single person, especially if you're adressing them directly.

[Pagan]

Once the employee picked up on "staff", I realized that's what the old guy had been yelling... but seriously, who does that???

This tool apparently! Seriously, how do you expect someone as high and mighty as himself to lower himself to speak to someone as lowly as "staff"?

[Buglady]

Off topic, but your phrase "book binge" made me laugh. The Boy has had a little trouble getting used to my book appetite. For my birthday he bought me a stack of books and said "you have to make these last! And I didn't get you any novels because you go through them too fast!". Poor guy. His obsessions are with movies and MMORPGs - stuff that you can't really "finish" fast, if at all - and I do read freakishly fast.

The most recent binge was at the local games store - on Boxing Day you make a D20 roll and your purchase is 20 + [whatever you rolled] percent off. It's fun even though I always get crap rolls. That's the only time I'm allowed in that store... The Boy goes in to look at Warhammer figures and whatnot, while I make a beeline for the $2 paperback table, followed by the 50% off trade paperbacks, followed by as much of the regular shelving as I can get to before The Boy realizes the danger and stops me. I just can't resist all that SF/fantasy in one place...

[ShugoAC]

Off topic, but your phrase "book binge" made me laugh. The Boy has had a little trouble getting used to my book appetite.

A girl with a proper appetite for books is very very hot Your Boy is very lucky.

I was trained to be like you by my mother, she's read more books than any other person alive today. Hands down. I own a closet full of books i cant fit on the bookshelves (plural) that i have but I cant make myself get rid of them all.

I've recently gotten into audiobooks, works well for me on the 12hrs a day i'm forced into manual labor to pay my book bills

[Buglady]

Oh, my whole family is like that too . My sister and I went to visit our parents over New Years - they live out in the middle of nowhere - and for four blissful days we all holed up reading books and doing a giant jigsaw puzzle. No TV, no radio, no internet (that was the only downside), and hardly any conversation! Any outside observer would have thought we hated each other. I felt like I could breathe for the first time in weeks. And we swapped PILES of books so everyone had lots of new stuff to read.

I envy people who can listen to audiobooks... I last about one chapter before I get distracted or overstimulated. Inattentive ADD explains part of it, but I suspect I have a specific sensory processing problem as well, because my auditory memory is just about nonexistent and because it takes a conscious effort for me to focus on sounds - especially speech. It is worst when I cannot get a visual backup to figure out what someone is saying (so I don't use the phone much!). I find it very tiring to have constant background radio/music/TV/whathaveyou.
Come to think of it, I believe I have spoken a total of 10 words out loud today, and that was to the dog... otherwise the house has been blessedly silent... (The Boy is at a LAN party. I have been sewing, and posting, and reading, in random rotation).

[Sliceanddice]

if it wasnt for paper back swap i would be thousands in the hole and have 10 book shelves instead of three.
the only time i can listen to audiotapes is if i am actually interested in the book and not driving.

[Dips]

The picture of a grown man standing there and yelling "STAFF!" the same way a toddler would yell "MOMMY!" is too funny.

I love how the employee defused it.

[Pagan]

My parents were ahead of the "read to your kids" curve. One summer was spent with my mom (before she went back to work) reading me "The Hobbit" and some other books. My dad would read to me in the evenings so that he could spend some time with me, too. To this day, I think his voice for Eeyore is the best one!

I own a closet full of books i cant fit on the bookshelves (plural) that i have but I cant make myself get rid of them all.

That would be like getting rid of an old friend that you love.

[Bandit]

From what I was told, I could read the "Three Little Pigs" before I could talk, as my parents read to me every night.

Everything from the Three Little Pigs, to Wind in the Willows, to Robert Louis Stevension books - before I was 10.

There's a reason I was reading adult books (like Wheels, Rosemary's Baby and The Hobbit) on my own before I was out of grade school.

Books and records are the most (by weight) things that I have.

B

[Buglady]

My People! They are here!!

I was reading at something approaching college level in about Grade 5 - as a result of which, I was a VERY CONFUSED child. (Parents, don't let your children read Robert Silverberg. Or Heinlein, for that matter. Ack).

[Imogene]

One year, in English class, we got to choose a particular book to read. The teach gave us a series of books to select from, and went through the easy ones first, the ones that'd have taken me... two, maybe three days to read. Then she got to her ultimate choice, The Time Machine. I jumped on that. Even with all the condescension she posited to any student who wanted to read it, how long it was, how difficult it would be to read.
I shrugged, and read it anyway. Got through it fairly quickly, too. And she was amazed by my comprehension of it. I had the greatest understanding of it out of the five or so of us who took it to read.

Which brings me to college. In English literature, we read "Young Goodman Brown," in groups. I sped through it three times by the time anyone else in my group had read it once. Then we had to answer questions on it. The group did two questions on their own, then I stepped in on the third question, which was basically, "What's the point of this story?" (Short version? He's seeing evil in all his neighbors, as a Protestant. It was a horrible time to see 'witchcraft' and 'sin' where there wasn't any...") Teacher pipes up, from across the room. "Sounds like some of you are getting it."
Group basically relegates the rest of the answers to me.

[Pagan]

I was reading at something approaching college level in about Grade 5 -

Same here. Another thing I do is read several books at once. Right now, it's only two.

In 6th grade, in our English class, everyday we had to write down a short summary of what we had read in whatever book we were reading. Comes around to the open house, and he's yapping at my parents about the fact that I had 3 books. They thought maybe I was confusing the stories, but I wasn't. We think the only reason he had a problem with it was that he couldn't do the same thing!

[Buglady]

I was lucky and never really had much trouble with teachers over the reading thing. They were usually a bit surprised at first, but it was a small school and word got around. The librarians loved me, except one woman who was very rigid about the "appropriate ages" for books... I just avoided her. Mostly the teachers were concerned about getting me *out* of whatever book was handiest, and getting me interacting with classmates. I was dreadfully, horrifically shy, and books were my refuge. They still are.

I've always had couple of books on the go at any given time - usually one fiction and one non-fiction, sometimes both fiction but one more complex than the other. Throw textbooks and class readings in there and I guess it would be closer to half a dozen items at a time. I never understood how anyone would get confused by multiple books...