To the Bookseller I Failed to Engage in Conversation

This is why you never ask introverts to do anything involving verbal communication.

Photo by Zoe on Unsplash

Hi — um, hey?

You probably don’t remember me. I had a mask on and everything and — oh, you see a hundred people every day anyway. It doesn’t matter.

Wait, scratch that. It does matter. Well, at least to me.

I saw that book you were reading earlier. The one with the purple cover? Yeah, that one. It’s pretty popular, I know, and you probably sell ten copies a day —

Sorry. I blabber a lot. I’m not the best at this — this conversation thing. Stammering is par for the course.

But that book? The one you had on the counter? I’m reading it too.

Not the same copy! I mean, duh, but my own copy. At home. Where I read. Um, yeah.

I wanted to tell you earlier. It seemed like the best kind of icebreaker, you know? “Oh, hey, that book’s cool, isn’t it? What do you think? Have you gotten to the part where she tries to murder him?”

Oh. Right. Spoilers. Sorry about that.

But — yeah, we’re reading the same book. I thought you’d like to know.