There are small groups of developmentally disabled folk who get herded downtown by their minders every so often for an outing.
They're low impact, not being avid readers, but maybe once a month somebody will get a wild hair. What inevitably happens is they bring up some fairly expensive book, in the $20-50 range. Then they dig through their myriad of bags and satchels tracking down hidden reserves of small coin. This is piled in the middle of the counter like an alter and a prayerful look is aimed my way.
With luck a minder is handy to break the bad news, otherwise the role of heavy falls to me.
I have no problem puncturing the fantasy lives of dreamers in search of lighter than air discounts, but these encounters always dampen my spirits.
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