I HATE YOU: Middle Aged Bookstore Douche

My girlfriend usually gets out of work after I do. Sucks for her. But when she asks me to come meet her after work, it sucks for me. You see, she works inside a landmark in New York City (I won't tell you which one, but let's just say it's a really tall building and that it wasn't knocked down on 9/11). This makes it hard to even enter the building where she works, let alone stand around it.

Because of this I have to spend a lot of time at a Border's bookstore nearby. It's an okay Border's--a bit small but big enough (that's what SHE SAID!)--so normally the 15 minutes to an hour I spend "chilling" while my girlfriend finishes working (or IMing her new boyfriend...or having her cooch photographed...same difference) go by quickly.

This past Friday was a different story. My girlfriend was, of course, running a bit behind on work so I had to head to the Border's. It was particularly annoying to have to wait for her because it was pouring outside. But oh well. I wasn't really in the market for a new book (I'm in the middle of Don Delillo's "Mao II") and I really didn't need any more DVDs either...so I headed over to the comics section. Yes, I'm a 25-year-old who reads comics. No, ma'am, I won't father your child.

Aaanyways, I was browsing the comic's section, looking for some Brian Michael Bendis joint I didn't have, when I spotted him in the corner of my eye. He was about 6 foot, thinning blonde hair pulled into a pony tail, a full beard, an "R. Crumb" t shirt, sweat pants and a trench coat and he was carrying his sopping wet oversized red umbrella. "Yesss, I'm at the comics section," he exclaimed. I turned around out of confusion and saw that he was on a blue tooth headset. Sweeeet.

"Man, I haven't read comics in years," he shouted into his blue tooth at the person on the other end. "Not since Crumb stopped doing 'American Splendor.' Hold on..." Then he clomped over to where I was crouched. "Yeah! They've got 'American Splendor!' Let me see if this one is a Crumb!"

Then I felt water drops hit the back of my neck...the guy's sopping wet trench coat was dangling right over my head. I moved a bit out of the way and watched as he ripped the "American Splendor" comic out of the book shelf, violently flipped through the book and, when realizing that his Lord and Saviour Robert Crumb hadn't worked on this particular volume, he rolled up the book and jammed it into a crevice in between shelves of the book case. The book fell out onto the floor.

"Oh boy!" he continued (at his arrogant volume). "They have lots of those suuuuperhero books! I wonder who reads those," he bellowed, while standing over me, a guy with a superhero comic book in his hands. "All that spandex...it's rather...Freudian, don't you think?? Yes! Just like in that documentary that we saw at the Quad!"

I looked away and started focusing the comic I was holding (and now planning on purchasing) when I felt some playful tapping on my back. A big smile came over my ruggedly handsome face. She's here! I thought. My girlfriend came to surprise me! I turned to give her a big hug and that's when I realized that that wasn't my girlfriend playfully tapping my back. It was the Middle Aged Book Store Douche's umbrella, wedged into my back and dripping all over me and the comic I was hoping to buy.

That's when I lost my shit. "Hey! Can you back up a bit! You're all up in my personal space!" I yelled.

He backed up a little and flashed me an arrogant smile. "Still there? Yeah...just a guy at the store," he said to his imaginary friend on the other end of his "phone call." He then walked out of the comic book section, still blabbering away on the phone. I should've kicked his ass out right there but then I'd be in jail right now instead of getting paid to complain about shit that annoys me.