Closed shops and talkative teenagers.

Today I walked 23 blocks to the comic shop only to find that it's closed down. :( On the plus side, I had an interesting encounter in the bookstore, where I went in an attempt to salvage my day after my comic shop disappointment.

I sat down in a chair to rest, and sitting across from me was a teenager. He had a half empty 2-litre bottle of some off brand Mountain Dew, and he had 14 books next to him. Mostly manga and a Halo novel. I was flipping through a book and he told me the creepy lady was gone. I said, "What lady?" He told me about an old lady who was sitting in the chair behind him, and he asked me if I thought she was creepy. I said, "I didn't see her." He said she was just sleeping in the chair, and that he wanted to tip her over. He said he calls it 'old tipping'. It's like cow tipping, but you tip over the elderly.

He kept asking me questions, like if I play Dragon Age, and telling me about random things. He kept saying, "Don't mind me," as if it was his catch phrase. At one point he asked if he was annoying me, so I said, "No, not at all." I asked him what he was reading, so he turned the book around and looked at the cover for a second, and I think he said, "Cookie." Then his eyes lit up and he said, "Now I'm hungry!"

A few minutes later when I looked over at his stack of manga books, I asked him, "You're a pretty big fan of manga, huh?" He shrugged his shoulders and said "Eh." Then without provocation or warning, he read a few pages to me, and showed me the illustrations like a wide-eyed elementary school teacher. I had no idea what was happening in the story. It apparently ended with a character-based joke, but being completely unfamiliar with the characters, I didn't understand the joke and didn't really react to it. After looking at me for my reaction and getting no hint of one, he tried explaining the context of the joke by telling me all about the character. I still didn't understand. Then he asked if I ever read Bleach, and I told him I had not.

I started asking him questions about himself, but it seemed like he became disinterested in interacting with me once he realized he really wasn't annoying me.