Purple Persuasion

I am in love with movies. All kinds of movies. From black and white silents and onwards. When I read that essay by Sherman Alexie where he talks about loving movies more than books, I was feeling that, yo. I get movies from the library, and from the chain video store, and the cool independent movie wearhouse, and from Netflix. All at the same time. I have no excuses for this, it's just who I am. That's the preface to this entry. I confess- I'm a librarian who's more filmish than bookish.

We went to the chain conglomerate-y video palace to get some flicks for last night (and I don't usually use the word "flicks" but I thought I would try it to convey our jaunty mood). Because we had both cried our eyes out the night before at "Brokeback Mountain," we wanted to go a little on the lighter side of Sears. Ok, a lot lighter. We went with "40-Year-Old-Virgin." We grabbed a Dr. Pepper out of the snack area (Nordic Boy's favorite beverage, can you believe that?) and took it up to the counter with the movie. All I can say to describe the woman behind the counter is that she always has these scary, super strong looking, I-could-kill-you, dark purple four-inch fingernails. All I can think of when I look at them is that they're like Deathstrike's blade-hands in the second X-Men movie. She looked at us cheerfully, held up the Dr. Pepper and said "Would you like to get two of these for the price of two?" We both paused. Nordic Boy gave her his patented Russell Crowe stare, which looks kind of sultry but actually conveys mild confusion. "Don't you mean two for the price of one?" he said. "No. Two-for-two. Would you like two-for-two?" She seems completely at ease with this exchange. Again, there was a pause. I chimed in next. "Is there some discount if we buy two?" She seemed kind of unimpressed with us, and said "I'm just saying that you can get two-for-two. Do you want two-for-two?" Simultaneously, defeated, we both said "No. Thanks."

So this got me thinking. Could this be a new marketing strategy that we can steal for use in the library? The Stating-the-Obvious-As-If-It's-A-Special" model? When strolling the stacks, we could approach patrons and say: "would you like to get a book for your personal use for three weeks absolutely FREE?" or we could have the folks at circulation say "would you like to have the option of paying two dollars in fines or just a couple of bucks?" or we could say "we're having a special today; unlimited reference questions answered right at this desk, while you wait!"

I think it could work. And Deathstrike fingernails for all staff members.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl