These days, I work at the Borders in Copley Square, which is a pretty different place than the suburban, next-to-a-mall Borders I used to work at. Theft, creeps, and homeless people are present in way higher numbers. On the other hand, the Boston store has frequent signings and pretty regular celebrity sightings. Yesterday I was in the last half-hour of my shift, working at the cash register, when somehow, possibly by osmosis, the news went around that the guy from Three Cups of Tea was over there, by the bestseller table, signing books.
If you haven’t read Three Cups of Tea, you should probably rectify that in the near future. Briefly, it’s about Greg Mortenson, a one-time mountain climber, who sort of stumbled into the work of building schools in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan. He’s now the director of the Central Asia Institute. Even if nonfiction isn’t your thing (and it’s usually not mine), it’s a compelling read. I actually blazed through the entire thing in about five or six hours of reading.
So imagine my excitement when I realized he was in the store! My very own store! I got very excited and gossiped with my fellow cashiers. A few minutes later he disappeared and I calmed down a little. Then I looked up and he was next in line. He was with a friend, and they came up to the register to buy a couple copies of the book. I felt a little ridiculous charging him for the evidence of his charitable work, but it wasn’t my place to say, “No, really, just take them.”
His friend sort of grinned and said, “Do you know who this is?” and I think I burst out with something like, “Yes, and I read the book over my Christmas break, and I’m so excited that you’re here!” Then I got to swipe his credit card, which (much to my geeky, I-remember-it-from-the-book delight) had his name and “Central Asia Institute” underneath. He reminded me vaguely of Sam Neill, but taller. He’s very tall.
What I didn’t get to say was, “Thank you, thank you, thank you. You’re my hero.”
Photo courtesy of phishfromtheroad.
