Parental Guidance Required...

I've been telling people for a long time that I want to start a blog filled with the hilarious quotes of Pat. Pat is a lady I work with. Actually, I am her supervisor but it often feels the other way around. This lady knows what she is doing, is brilliant, charming, friendly, and LOVES books. And she's an old biddy who curses like a sailor and is one of the few people in the world who will tell you the thing you most need, but least want, to hear.

Case in point. Just a few days shy of my 32nd birthday and there's a zit on my nose bigger than any I experienced in high school. Throughout the day I saw many glances but no one brave enough to bring up the pimple. Pat walks up and before she can say "Hello," says "Wow, I bet that big thing on your nose is embarrassing!"

That's Pat. And here's Pat ...(Those with Puritanical sensibilities should avoid reading any further.)

On the concern of Mormons of celestial marriage...

"Shit. If I get to heaven and find out there are husbands there, just send me to the other place."

On being asked what she told her husband at the end of a heated argument...

"I told him he could go fuck himself!"

An interaction with a customer (who we should always be friendly to.)

Customer: Do you have that new book called The Da Vinci Code?
Pat: We have it but it's not new.
Customer (with certainty): It must be new, I just heard about it.
Pat: I guess you've been living under a rock for the past five years?

On being told the story of an overly sensitive customer who felt demeaned by another bookseller who told him she didn't read fiction...

"I would have told him 'Look, it's only 9:30 in the morning and you have already ruined my goddamned day. Now get out of my fucking store you fiction-reading piece of shit.'"

On being told that I got asked by a customer if there was anything they could pray for me about...

"Oh, I get that all the time. I just tell them 'Look, I do my own goddamned praying, so just leave me alone.'"


Yep, it's Pat alright.