Encountering the nemesis again

She's started turning up a lot more frequently.  In fact, I'd almost swear she was stalking me.  That is what nemeses do, isn't it?  If it's not, it ought to be.  It is a suitably nemesis-like thing to do, after all.

I've encountered her twice in the mall since the first of the year.  Once was even within the sanctity of my very own booth.  That's kind of like the Joker making his way into the Batcave!

The first time she was at a register checking out when I was getting there.  She had several books, which is natural, since she is the Book Lady.  I could only imagine the stacks of her rejects sitting in booths all over the mall where she had scanned them and left them laying in piles on the floor.  I disliked her before she got that damn barcode scanner.  Since she got it, I dislike her even more.

Anyway, she was giving the cashier a hard time over the price of a book.  Seems she had gotten it off a shelf with a sign that said books were 58 cents, and the book was marked 1.49 in the front, so she was protesting the extra 91 cents.  Seriously.

In a place like a vendor mall, the cashiers have to go by the price that is actually on the item.  It's all they can do.  That book could have come from somewhere else in the booth she got it from and been laid on the 58 cent shelf by a customer.  It also could have come from a totally different booth and been left there by a customer.  No one--not vendors, not cashiers, not managers--has control over where the customers will leave merchandise.  It's part of the game.

I can tell you with all certainty, however, that if the dealer had intended that book to be 58 cents, it would have been marked that price.

The Nemesis would have none of it.  She wanted them to call the dealer and verify.  She wanted the book for 58 cents.  She wanted them to call the dealer and have them come out and change the sign.  She wanted them to go take the sign down, since it was "misleading."  Of course, no one was going to do any of these things, so she paid for the book and left.  (For the record, if an item is over 50 dollars and a customer wants to make an offer, they will call us.  Otherwise, they won't.  If that rule was not in place, we'd get calls all day over 25 cent items.)

I was able to roll my eyes and walk away from that episode, feeling sorry for the cashier.  I couldn't get out of the next encounter quite so easily.

I was working in my book booth, when she popped up in the middle of it.  Now, mind you, this was after a couple of days of HUGE book sales for me and the place was a wreck, which was why I was cleaning it.  So, she kind of pushes past me, kicks some stuff around and says "It's a bit of a mess."  (Uh, hello, I'm cleaning up here!)

Then she says:  "Is this your booth?"  (No, I clean random book booths for fun.)  When I told her that it was, she kind of grunted and said "Interesting."  (Which means what, exactly?)

Then she tells me that she's spent "quite a bit of money" on my stuff (which I doubt, since I've never seen her spend "quite a bit of money" anywhere.  She usually just leaves messes.)  However, she doesn't any more, since I don't have all those Catholic books.  (Which is not true.  She was standing right by several of them.)  I pointed out the ones I had in the book booth and also showed her where I moved the prayer books and Bibles over to my religion wall.  She walked away in the opposite direction!

Curse you, Nemesis Book Woman!