Please fire me. I work at a small bookstore in an airport. Because of our limited space, weāre very strict about what titles we carry: we only keep books that sell. Sales are carefully monitored and if something isnāt selling at a sustainable rate, itās pulled from the shelves.
One book we donāt sell is the Bible. We periodically have customers asking for a Bible, but aside from mild annoyance, they rarely make an issue when we inform them we donāt have any. However, I had a customer come in a few weeks ago and ask where we kept our Bibles.
āIām sorry, we donāt carry any Bibles,ā I told her.
āWhy not?ā she demanded.
āOur store is small and we donāt have the room for them,ā I said.
āNo room, huh?ā she said. She pointed to a book on display called Ghost Bride. āBut you have room for books on ghosts?ā
āItās one of our staff picks for the month.ā It was my staff pick, actually. āIf youāre interested, we do have a small religion section.ā
She grumbled a bit, but let me take her to the shelf of religion books to browse. She returned to the register a few moments later with a used copy of A Purpose-Driven Life. I rang up her book and handed it to her, thanking her for her purchase. She lingered by the register, packing her book into her luggage, gathering up her bags, checking to make sure she had her boarding pass and ID.
Once she was all situated, she straightened, looked me in the eyes and announced, āI will PRAY for this store,ā and swept out.
The next day I told this story to a coworker whoās been at our location for 7 years. After Iād finished the story (and heād finished rolling his eyes), I said, āWhy donāt we have any Bibles? Enough people ask for one, Iād think weād be able to sell a copy or two.ā
āWe used to have Bibles,ā he said, ābut they barely sold. People would come in and ask for one, but not buy it. They were just checking to make sure we had them. I think we were being tested.ā
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