My manager, Pat, was asking if Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer were the same book, and I was telling him that Huck Finn was a much more serious book, about racism, and how at the end of the book Huck thinks he's damned for liking Jim, for taking Jim's side, going against all his own upbringing. "He thinks he's gone to the Dark Side, but really he's on the side of the Force."

Customer pipes up. "This is the only place I can go to that uses Star War's metaphors to explain classic books."

That really cracked me up.

But then, all books can be explained by Star Wars metaphors.

I had a college professor who told me I had a 'facile' talent for writing -- but she wasn't being complimentary. Still, I knew what she meant. It allowed me to be a B student, with no effort, rather than an A student with effort.

Pat tells me I use some word he's never heard every day. No one ever tells me that; I think with my beard and glasses and my professorial manner, people seem to expect it. My blond little wife uses big words, and everyone calls her on it, even though she owns a damned bookstore....

But that is the great thing about owning your own store...you make your own rules.