Not A Blog™

I’m sick, so I only have a short entry today. Additionally, Sunday’s entry will be going up late Sunday night. Monday’s entry might be on time.

You may or may not be aware that Robert Heinlein had another book published on the 19th of September. He wrote part of an outline and some notes on the book early on in his career, but among other works it became buried and he never finished it. It was “rediscovered” some fifty years later (actual happening or marketing ploy? You decide!), and the Heinlein Trust selected a contemporary science fiction author, Spider Robinson, to finish it. I haven’t started reading it yet, and I probably won’t even after I finish typing this because I feel like crap. And you know I must really feel like crap if I won’t even take the time to read Heinlein, however prototypical.

Since I own a copy of nearly every book Heinlein has published, I had to purchase this one as well. When I first read about it, I was going to put in an order online, but I got busy doing other things and never actually did. Of course, my next trip to the bookstore jogged my memory, and so I just put in the order there, since I’m there all the time anyway.

Now, I understand the bookstore employees are supposed to provide customer service, and I understand that this entails appearing personable and carrying on small talk. I know this; I’ve been behind the counter. But I’m pretty sure one of the unwritten rules of short-short conversations is, if endevouring to do more than simple feigning of interest, make sure you have your facts correct.

Case in point was the clerk who put in my order. The conversation went like this.

Me: Hi. I’d like to put in an order for a book, but it doesn’t officially come out until September 19. Can I do that here?

Clerk: Sure, what’s the title or author?

Me: It’s Variable Star by Robert Heinlein.

[At this point, the clerk begins to feign interest. She has a passing familiarity with Heinlein which, evidently, consists of the following two factoids: 1) he was an author and 2) he was prolific. She attempts to use these two facts in conjunction in order to carry on a conversation with me, the entire point of which appears to be for my entertainment, and possibly to kill any silences. This makes for the most awkward small talk, ever.]

Clerk: Wow, that guy just keeps putting out books.

Me: He’s dead.

Clerk, genuinely trying to play it off as surprise: Oh, no, I didn’t know that! I guess it was just recently, huh?

Me, probably inadvertently making an inconsiderate face: No, he died in 1988. That was, like, almost twenty years ago.

[Uncomfortable silence. Now I can see the wheel’s turning in the clerk’s head. She’s trying to come up with a way to salvage the conversation. She decides that rather than admit she really doesn’t know anything about Heinlein, she’s going to argue with me. You will note that I did not say “oh, I think he died in 1988,” or “I might have read somewhere he died in 1988.” I stated a fact: 1988. Dead.]

Clerk: Are you sure? I think it was like 90-something. Like the mid 90’s.

[At this point in the conversation I want to strangle the lady for bring this up in the first place. At first she acted surprised that he was dead, indicating to me that she thought he was still alive. Now she says she thought he died in the 90’s. Huh? If she thought that, then why did she remark about how many books he’s still pumping out? The conversation is making no sense at this point. It’s clear that not only is she just talking to me to kill time, she doesn’t even know what she’s talking about. This in itself doesn’t particularly bother me, but if you don’t know the subject matter, don’t argue with me about it! Annoyed, I intentionally kill the conversation by not playing along.]

Me: No, it was 1988.

Clerk: Oh.

She finishes entering my order during a most tense silence—all of which could have been avoided by applying the fill-in method of conversation. That is, asking an open ended question such as, “what’s the book about?” and letting the other person do all the work.

So today I got the book in my hands and fled the store before yet another person could ask me inane questions about deceased science fiction authors. (”Isaac Asimov? Wasn’t he, like, German?”) And now, being tired and mad, I’m off to bed.

-Ted