I went to the used bookstore this weekend, just to look. I was looking, minding my own little used-bookstore-business in the atlas section, finding great pleasure looking at the pictures in a pretty little book called “Atlas of the World’s Highways” when someone behind me started talking.

I figured he wasn’t talking to me, so I flipped the page from the “Friendship Highway” which runs from Katmandu though Tibet to the “Scenic 101” which runs along the California coast.

The thing was, the guy behind me kept talking, finally he said, “Excuse me” and reached around me to get an atlas I was sitting in front of. Then he proceeded to inform me of the most intimate details of atlas publishing and cartography.

Mind you, I had asked no questions, but he proceeded to tell me not only were these atlases overpriced, but that they weren’t even the quality ones he was looking for. “Quality ones like the Rand-McNally 1978 Gold Medallion edition, which has county specific maps of northern Canada . . .” As he was talking I was thinking:
1. I’m trapped in the not-so-much-frequented atlas section of a used bookstore by a gregarious cartophile.
2. I wonder if cartophile is really a word? English is cool because you can just make up words and people still know . . . Wait! I’m trapped!
3. This man has an immense amount of knowledge about atlases and map-making in his brain.
4. He thinks I care.
5. His head is shaped just like an egg.
6. I wish I did care, why don’t I ever come across these kind of people who know stuff when I want to know stuff?

(30 minutes later)

7. He looks weak, I could probably take him.
8. I bet he would never approve of this Highway atlas, the pictures are superfluous, the maps are undetailed and probably (gasp) computer generated.
9. If I start easing my way toward the self-help I can escape into the fiction section—Here’s my chance!

I was just trying to mind my own-little-used-bookstore business.