A non-book-review book review

To write a “book review” of  The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert somehow seems presumptuous of me.

First, a “review,” as I understand reviews, would have me tell you a bit about the story. I do not want to do that.  For once, I picked the book up just because of the author and my love of her writing. I did not read anything about it beforehand.

The title was enough to pull me into it on its own. The title resonates. What was this “signature?” I found out…but not before something like Page 497 (of 500), and even then it’s something your book club can debate for a long time. I’m still thinking about it myself.

So, I’m glad I approached it that way, for to have nestled up to any spoilers would have been unthinkable. I did not want to know “what the book is about” beforehand. I’m glad I did that, because it made everything in it a wonder, and with wonders loaded it is.

Signature is really an epic, I’d say. It covers most of the 18^th and 19^th Centuries, and it ranges from London to Philadelphia and more wondrous places than you might ever imagine. The story it presents is more richly researched than any I’ve read in a long time.

Her classy writing moved me forward like not many other books. Even at 500 pages, it presented no temptation to stop, as have others of that length. It never seems to drag, and it may not even be long enough. I would have liked for the goodies of plot and character development to never stop.

But that would have been impossible, for Gilbert’s characters are one-offs, singular, never-to-be born-anew as somebody else.

Simply stated, “there is no there there,” as Gertrude Stein once wrote.

Good management … and what happens when it’s not

Some of you may remember Bass’ iconic “Weejuns.” AKA the world’s greatest casual shoes. I had worn them for years, but then sadly my last pair – re-soled and re-heeled one time too many – had to be retired..

I was pleasantly surprised, however, to find that Bass still makes Weejuns. They call them something else, but they are the same, and the box they come in proudly displays the semiotic brand “Weejuns.” I was delighted … and even more so when I found out my favorite retail store was advertising them at a nice discount online.

Ca-ching. A deal was done. And they emailed me within minutes to say that I could pick up my new Weejuns the next day at their Short Pump Town Center store.

I did. But I did not try them on until later that night at home. I put the right one on. Perfect fit. I would not have expected anything less. Just like the old days.

But then … what was this? I have been buying and wearing shoes for more years than I’d care to think about. But this had never happened.

The left shoe would not fit. Not because it was a size smaller, but because it was simply another right-footed shoe. I had been delivered a box of perfectly packaged shoes but perfectly fitted for right feet only.

“Well, never in my born days,” as my Georgia-bred grandmother used to say …

The good news is that I took the box back to the store the next day, and the manager who helped me and I both got a big laugh out of my question: “I wonder what the dude who got the other box thinks about having two left-footed Weejuns?”

You know the rest. I was made whole. And cheerfully so…even with an additional 15 percent discount for my “trouble,” as the manager put it, of having to come back to the store.

No trouble at all, I replied. They just solidified an already good customer’s loyalty.

*

But about three hours later, this happened at the grocery store I usually go to. I go there because they were the unlikely heir to one to the best grocery chains I’ve even known.

I’d been seeing the signs for a while. First a well-respected manager left, his replacement virtually invisible even three years later.

But that management absence – or dereliction of duty – showed its true stripes tonight.

I was walking though the bakery area when I saw a woman slip on a wet floor and fall almost flat. And she did not fall lightly either, it could have been serious. I helped her to her feet and stayed with her to make sure she was going to be OK. She said she was. It had just been so unexpected, she said.

Indeed. There was a single flimsy yellow sign warning of a damp floor…but it was about four feet away from where she had slipped and fallen. Water – or something clear and wet –covered about 10 square feet of busy aisle space, the misplaced excuse-for-a-warning sign about as effective as Chicken Little announcing a tsunami.

Once all was OK with the lady who had fallen, I was incensed. No one from store management showed up. So I went to them. At their mis-named “service desk,” I told the four employees gathered there helping a single customer what had happened.

They were taken out of their game, one showing a bit of an attitude. She said, “but there was a warning sign there.”

My response was rather direct and forceful. I did not cuss .. but I sure as hell did think it.

I told the four of them to please get somebody over there to mop up the water in the aisle where customers were walking and quit standing around arguing with me.

I’ve seen this kind of attitude there before, but not to the point of ignoring the fact that a woman had fallen on their pristine floor.

FuelPerks be damned. They just lost a good customer.

And they want $15 an hour?