There are certain interactions with other humans that stick in your mind. Sometimes they stick in your craw and your mind. Their indelible nature doesn’t seem to be closely related to their actual importance. They could be really minor episodes, trivial really, but perhaps they represent some theme or trend that captivates your memory in some way.

My poor wife is always trying to remind me of fairly notable events that I can’t recall clearly. Some contretemps we had in the car over directions, or the exact date a human being exited her womb. Stuff like that. Women are weird, and recall the darnedest things, instead of important stuff like whether Flutie was on his own 35 yard line, or the 40, or where my largest flat-blade screwdriver is currently located. He was on the 37, of course.

I chalk most of this up to a phenomenon I call “My mind is kind.” I notice a lot of things other people don’t, and if I didn’t have some sort of trash collection going full bore in my head, trivial offal would be leaking out of my ears by now, instead of just out of my keyboard.

I remember this one evening about 25 years ago. We were on the main drag in Dartmouth, Massachusetts in a bookstore that looked like an old English Tudor-style building. Baker Books, I think it was called. It had a strip-mall parking area to the right of the entry door. You entered into a vestibule, where they piled lots of heavily discounted coffee-table-type books. I think they wanted people to shoplift them on the way out, to get rid of them. As you entered the store proper, on the left was a little seating area and a coffee bar, which was more or less a novelty back then. It was always closed, but you could sit in the chairs if you wanted to.

We didn’t want coffee anyway, because we had eaten in a restaurant a few doors down. The eatery was decorated in what Angelenos dubbed the Googie Style, a kind of George Jetson motif, along with a healthy dose of postmodern color scheme. I remember a lot of purple and yellow. I had a plate of meatloaf wrapped in bacon, which doesn’t seem like what you’d order on a night on the town, but it was obviously cooked by someone who really knew what they were doing. I can’t remember what my wife had. See, there’s that problem again.

Anyway, the bookstore hosted book signings and similar foofaraw in that little coffee area, but nothing was doing. There were racks of books by local authors or about local topics arranged around the seating. Straight ahead from the entry door were the majority of the book stacks, with their butt ends facing the door. There was a long wall of books on the far wall, too, perpendicular to the interior store stacks.

Directly on the right as you entered you’d find the checkout counter. It was a riot of tchotchkes and bric-a-brac. I remember they used one of those translucent white Apple computers that looked like a giant motorcycle helmet or something. Apple computers make terrible point of sale machines in my experience, but no one asked me. There was a young man behind the counter wearing a T-shirt two sizes too small for him, and four sizes too small for anyone who ate any meat. I don’t remember the slogan on it. He had eyeglasses that looked like $500 versions of shop glasses.

If you kept going right, there were more book stacks grouped in a kind of grotto. They had a lot of good books about woodworking and architecture and other things I liked there. Further on, there was a step down into a children’s book room, with a toy castle in it that our children liked a great deal, although it was quite plain.

We got some books and went back to checkout desk. We had to wait our turn. There was a middle-aged woman in front of us. She had an I Want To Talk To The Manager hairdo long before that was a thing, and she actually wanted to talk to the manager. She was heavy set, bottle blonde, and wearing a puffy vest. The clerk was visibly afraid of her.

“Where are all the Feng Shui books? I don’t see them.”

“They’re right there, ma’am, one aisle over. There’s a little sign on the end of the row.”

“I saw those. That’s not many Feng Shui books. Why don’t you have more Feng Shui books?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. I don’t buy the books…

“You should have more Feng Shui books!”

“There’s a whole section of Feng Shui books.”

“That’s not many.”

“If there’s a particular Feng Shui book you’re looking for, we can order it for you.”

“I DON’T WANT TO BUY A FENG SHUI BOOK. I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE YOU DON’T TAKE ANY OF THEM AWAY BECAUSE PEOPLE COMPLAINED ABOUT TOO MANY FENG SHUI BOOKS!”

Then she stomped out of the building, and didn’t even have the decency to shoplift a coffee table book on the way out through the vestibule, about Feng Shui or otherwise.

Perhaps I remember it all these years later, because even back then, in my heart I sensed that someday the entire world would be run by women who wanted to make sure no Feng Shui books were taken away because people complained. I haven’t been disappointed in that regard.

Or maybe the meatloaf was that good.