49. Public Relations: Absolutely True Conversations

::the bookstore::

SEX BOOKS

We have several kinds of people looking for sex books:

• First you've got your teenage boy - he doesn't ask where it is but finds the erotica with his buddies and they start to giggle like tween girls. Give them a stern look and they shrink away.

• The Midlife-Crisis man buys his Letters to Penthouse and a porno mag (which is exactly where the teenage boys went after you scared them from books) 

• You've got your free spirited couples who know exactly where the books are and are completely unashamed. 

• and Then- before the 50 Shades Movement that made books like this 'Romance'- you have your Sex-and-the-City-Desperate-Housewife or your curious Co-ed who buys Anne Rice's The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. She'll ask you where the books are, She'll either be totally unembarrassed or say "my friend recommended it and says it's actually a really good book".
  and it's Anne Rice who am I to judge so I assure them that "that's what I hear

• and of course you have your oddball, it's usually female with dyed hair or a couple of piercings. They'll ask you where the books are and have some weird specific thing they're looking for and are more than willing to tell you about it. I think they don't really need help but are on a mission to either embarrass you or have the need to let someone know how 'cool' they are because they have a [insert sex toy / fantasy outfit / fetish]. What they don't know is that it truly doesn't bother you because as unique as they're trying to be, they're not. You even suggest they buy the book called FETISH with the black rubber cover. But you mostly suggest it because the book is a hard sell like the ugly car in Raising Helen you know and she wins a ham for selling it? 

•  and Lastly you have your overwhelmed Mothers, and Fathers, who need the other sex section. The 'Sex Talk' books: The My body's changing, my first period, am I normal?, how-the-hell-do-I-talk-about-this-to-my-kid books. And the poor parents are so grateful for you help and I feel for them, kids these days are getting mature younger and younger. 

But I was not prepared for this:

Customer: Mom and Daughter

Mom: Hi, I need a sex book for my son.
Me: So like puberty, birds and the bees?
Mom: No, instructional, you see my son is 16 and he's having trouble having sex with his girlfriend and we wanted to give him a book to help him out...Let me get this straight, Your sixteen year old son- and you're younger brother- needs help having sex with his girlfriend and you want to buy and then give him an instructional book on not only on the basics of how to have sex but how to do it better? This is not awkward AT ALL. I can't tell if I'm horrified that you're helping your son have sex, that you're worried about his performance, or that you alllll know about it? Now that's a close and caring and creepy family you got there. Take your Man's Guide to Better Sex and leave.