Let me paint that skunk's stripe for you.

Michele and I work at the store on national holidays so the staff can have the day off, and yesterday was no exception. We had a lot of out-of-town visitors who wanted souvenirs and gifts.

One woman brought one of our little plush coyotes to the counter and wanted to know whether we had any more, because its whiskers were not straight. I rooted around in the bins and found all the coyotes we had on hand and lined them up on the counter; all of them had bent whiskers, which made them all look sort of like Salvador Dali. It seems to be the nature of the beast, both in the wild and in plush.

"If I were getting it for myself," she explained, "I wouldn't mind so much, but this is a gift, and the whiskers should be perfect." I suggested that she might like one of our plush scorpions or roadrunners instead--both are Southwestern critters and don't have whiskers. But it was a coyote or nothing. I suggested that she might apply gentle heat to the whiskers to get them to the angle she preferred, and she said that might work. She sighed heavily, bought the toy, and walked out working on its whiskers.



One of those dawgs lookin' up.

One of those artists lookin' right.

Another woman came in and picked up Spud, novel for young adults, about a prepubescent kid in South Africa who goes to a boys' boarding school. It's full of hi-jinx, adolescent angst, and raging hormones. She asked whether it was good, and I said I enjoyed it. I told her that it was a little edgy because of some sexual content. She said, "I don't want it then. It's dirty. [See also Wagner.] I read only clean books." I learned very early that customers who think Driving Miss Daisy is too sarcastic and who hate the mindless bloodletting of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek are best left to their own devices. She finally chose Cheaper by the Dozen, one of my all-time faves. I hope she doesn't think having 12 kids is dirty, because if she does, that book is pure porn.