All readers know that Tuesday is the most likely day for new releases to hit the bookstores. This week, I made the husband pause at the big chain bookstore so I could grab an eagerly anticipated book when he really wanted to go directly to his juggling event.

I zipped around every display in the front of the store like an eighties cokehead. Frustrated at the amount of time I was delaying the husband, I asked for the book at the help desk. I kid you not, the employee moved in slow motion to avoid my obvious state of frantic, like parents of tantruming children whispering to create false calm. “Could you spell the title?” “Is it by <- mispronounces the author’s name three times in three different ways ->?” “It’s shelved in the fantasy section.”

This is the point where I should have run back to the section where the employees see me searching every weekend. Instead, my brain popped and I became irrational woman. I proceeded to campaign for the book to be moved to the front of the store with an employee who has zero control over the placement of anything in that building. “But it was just reased today.” “It has ten years of loyal fans looking for it.” “You could fill an entire table with this one author’s books.”

They treated me like the crazy person that I was and walked me back to the section I know so well that I immediately reached for the book, snatched it up and raced to the front registers. The waiting husband sensed my mental state and made no complaints about my errand taking too long. I should have ordered the book from Amazon. If bookstores won’t give new releases extra love and refuse to carry authors with massive Internet followings, they deserve the thrashing that online sellers are giving them.