I was in my favorite used book store the other day when I heard the phone ring. I caught most of what the proprietor was saying, and after a while, I figured out that he was talking to someone who was in the process of opening a used book store and looking for advice. The store was small and quiet enough that I could hear pretty much everything on my end of the conversation.
The guy at my store was walking him through some of the basics, things like rent and shelf space and buying/trading from customers. It sounded like the person from the other store had some of the basics down but had not thought about a lot of the little details. After ten minutes or so of, alternately, pointing out a lot of the potential problems and bucking up the other fellow’s confidence, the call ended this way:
“Well, give me a call if you ever need anything. I look forward to selling you a truckload of books! You gotta buy them from someone, right? Okay, good luck and welcome to the club!”
[hangs up]
“You poor bastard.”