THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE CLUELESS CUSTOMER PHONE CALL

Sometimes a telephone call is so oblique, I wonder if the caller and I live on different planets – or perhaps just different planes!
Riiiing!

Me: “The Prints and The Paper.”
She: “Yeah – I found….I see….I…um…..It says here you have RARE BOOKS?”
[warning alarms…..]
Me: “Well, I do sell USED and rare books.”
She: “Right. So you have RARE BOOKS?”
Me (reluctantly): “Well, I have some….”
She: “I have this book…..”
[LOUD warning alarm….]
She: “I’m trying to find out….like, why this is a RARE BOOK.’
Me: (feeling a bit lost): “Well – uh – what book is it.”
She, proudly: “It’s LITTLE BLUE BOOK!”
[oh dear oh dear oh…….]
Me: “uh, well – which one is it?”
She: “I TOLD you! It’s LITTLE BLUE BOOK.”
Me: “Well, there are a couple of thousand Little Blue Books. Most of them aren’t worth much – I have hundreds I would sell for $1 apiece. So what title is yours?”
She; “I TOLD you! LITTLE BLUE BOOK. You mean it’s only worth a dollar? How can a RARE BOOK be worth a dollar? And you have hundreds of it?”

Me: (I spend considerable time trying to explain that there are many authors, many titles….some are scarce and worth a little money, most are not….there are some collectors, but not many….I keep trying to determine what she has and/or what her question is….)

She: “Well I saw this book you have for $8. It’s the LITTLE BLUE BOOK so I’m trying to figure out why a rare book is $8.”

I’m not too sure how the conversation finally ended – I was pretty confused by then and I remember only that she was rather hostile and ended our discussion abruptly.

I’d like to ask “what’s next?” but I’m afraid I’ll find out.