So I’m working the Info desk tonight, and this attractive woman walks over and tells me I need to find her naked.

Which kind of puzzles me for a minute — particularly given her accent and her phrasing — is she propositioning me? Or am I supposed to find an alternate dimension version of herself running around the Bookstore in her birthday suit?

Seeing my confusion, and apparently figuring I’m too stupid to look a gift model in the boobs, she hands over a printed document. It’s some sort of online press release, and while I don’t actually read Portuguese (Brazil!), but Playboy International maintains its name across languages pretty well.

Sadly, we didn’t actually carry the magazine, and for reasons I don’t entirely understand, I spent several minutes on her cell phone trying to explain this to her boyfriend/pimp, who didn’t speak very good English, either. Too bad: I kind of wanted to ask him why he wanted the magazine if he gets to see the real thing every night?

Ah, brother, then.

Do you know what day it was one year ago, March 17th, 2008?

I don’t know either, actually. A Monday, probably. I’ll tell you what it wasn’t, though: it wasn’t St. Patrick’s Day, which was actually March 15th. (That’s the cool thing about Catholic holidays — every now and then, some of them get moved).

But today is St. Patrick’s Day. So if you’re one of those faux Irish who’ll use any excuse to drink, have fun getting yourself piss drunk. Me? I might have a beer when I get home from work, but I’ll still be at work at 7am, and I’ll probably be just a little bit louder than I usually am, for my hungover colleagues.

Meanwhile, it’s my first St. Patty’s Day at the Bookstore tonight, and I don’t know what to expect. We already get more than our fair share of crazy mother fuckers, so tonight I’m expecting all of them, drunk, plus a whole bunch of regular drunk dumb asses who want to fill our toilets with green pee.

Er. No thanks.

Hopefully, however, everyone will be so busy drinking themselves into a stupor that we’ll have a pretty easy night of it. Yesterday was the second night in a row I walked back to find that some dirt back scum shit had left a total mess in our Business section — I mean, honestly, is it so goddamn hard to put your books back where you found them? This is not your bedroom, and I’m not your fucking mother.