A Letter to Bookstore Patrons Concerning Courtesy

Originally written on Dec. 18, 2007 on Gamerswithjobs.com, http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/36472. That post included pictures that have been removed from this version to keep in style with a strictly text format.

Dear Stupid, Cheap, Small-Handed, Chimp-Faced, Simpletons,

I write you today to discuss one of the last few places that I actually enjoy shopping, the bookstore. Any multimillion dollar, built-in-a-day, same-across-America bookstore, where everything is brown, piano music is playing, and coffee shop is included.

Picture yours now for me. Is your local text peddler dancing vividly in your mind?

Good. Let's take a little mental tour, now, to a special little spot in the store. Through the front door, past the podiums of latest editions and tired old rehashes, beyond the middle of the store info-desk, nestled sweetly between the teen dramas and the Sci-fi section.

The graphic novel stand. So glorious. So beautiful.

But, wait. Oh no, something is amiss. Now that my tears of joy have run from my eyes I can see a little more clearly. It's, oh it's not perfect at all.

Covers are creased. Nay, torn! The alphabetical order is that of a madman. DC and Marvel are mixed! Why on Earth is thy symmetry so disheveled? Who would do such a thing as to disturb our sacred tomes?

Oh, that's right! It's YOU, you @#$% half-wit, sticky fingered, excuse for an adult!

Don't act so surprised &%#face!

I was on to you as soon as you walked in the store. A slouched, wheezing carapace, with a barely noticeable 6 weeks beard growth sporadically battling the macaroni and cheese on your face from lunch. Your globe-like form adorned with a cracked brown leather jacket, vaguely reminiscent of Dr. Jones and some sort of adult 4X OshKosh B'Gosh number that you've decided to leave unbuttoned so that we may gaze upon your supple, hairy teats.

You go right for them, snatching them up with all the class of a registered sex offender. Drooling cinnamon frappuccino from your gaping maw as you mouth-breathe huskily over a two page spread of Black Canary. Fumbling at the edges of the paper like you once fumbled over your sister's bra strap. Gripping the spine in your sweaty palms as you concentrate hard on not making a premature before you get to the public restroom.

Put it the %@$# down! Just put it down Stay Puft! This is a rack where people pick things up, to buy them. They haven't been put here so it's convenient for you to lock yourself in a stall with that dog-eared volume of Birds of Prey, dragging your completely bare testicles ever, ever, ever so slowly down the glossy print of each and every page.

It's supposed to work like this: I go to my local comic shop and look through his stuff. Then, if he doesn't have what I want, I whore myself down to the box store and look through their larger collection. But, the bookstore doesn't have a bigger collection, because after you've come in and smeared your bodily fluids and beverage of choice among every issue displayed, I would never decide to add these to my collection at home. Mostly because when I do eventually decide to kill you, your DNA would be all over my house.

Now, I'm not telling you to stop doing what you're doing. To put a cork in that bottle would only result in a rash of dead prostitutes. No, I'm saying that if you want to continue fornicating with the collected volumes in the comic section, then buy them first.

Or after. I really don't care. I just don't want them to be there after you leave.

I don't want to have to wonder if the white flakes on the edges of The Dark Knight Returns are more than just the remnants of your doughy breakfast.

I just want to know that if I walk up to the rack and see a graphic novel that I'd like to have, I can buy it without having to worry about the pages being creased. Or covered in powdered sugar. Or that they will give me chlamydia. Or, I mean, God knows what I could catch that I haven't even thought of, because with you, any atrocity is possible.

You see, you're disgusting. You're the big, fat, smelly stereotype that fuels a Simpsons character and, frankly, I hate you. You're not reading these to live a fantasy of a more dangerous, exciting life because you have responsibilities or bills or a wife. You're living these fantasies because you've decided to be a load that has absolutely no regard for even his fellow comic enthusiasts. You're the worst kind of fan. You're a cancer from the inside. A festering clot that disrupts the flow of the system. You see, and you want, and you take. Sitting there in dire need of a hair cut with phlegm running down your chin and gummy bears stuck all over your chubby digits.

God I hate you so much. I don't know what I would do to you if I had the power.

Sincerely,
Chiggie Von Richthofen
Able to go wee in the potty