I'm still too embarassed to find it funny.

On the way to the Oregon coast last weekend, Christian and I stopped, as moral imperative dicatates, at Powell's, the best bookstore that god or man has ever created. We bought about 15 new and used books for $126 with NO TAX. I mean, each of the Anne of Green Gables series of books was $1-2, and I found all of the same publisher and mostly similar editions. Where else can you find a Debbie Bliss children's sweater pattern book for $8? That shit ain't cheap.

After I completed my purchases, Christian ran down the street to Powell's separate technology bookstore (as they can't possibly want the techie guys mixing with their usual clientele) and I was killing time in the magazine section, reading Vogue Knitting and chuckling over the heinous fun-fur, cropped sweaters with matching hand-warmers and "kicky" glittery, acrylic hoodies with pom-poms that will inevitably end up on You Knit What within weeks.

Anyway, I checked to see if my phone was on as Christian was going to call me if he was going to take longer than our agreed upon time, and I saw that Christy, she who takes care of the pets, called so I called her back to make sure everything was OK. Now, I must set the scene, here. I'm sitting on a bench by the front door with my back to the masses of people streaming in, everyone coming and going, the cashiers and info desk right next to me, people talking, shouting, laughing, babies crying, etc. Not a place for quiet reflection. The rest of the bookstore, yes, but not the FRONT DOOR. Ahem. So I'm sitting on the bench and I call Christy. I'm chatting with her about Christian's job interview and the pets and our upcoming auditions and I notice that the young man sitting next to me (who, by the way, has taken up a good quarter of the bench with his enormous backback) is staring at me. After a few more minutes, he says to me loudly, "Don't you think that's rude?"

Startled, I replied, "Don't I think what is rude?"

"Talking on your phone," he replied.

"No, don't you think it's rude to interrupt a personal conversation?" I replied, irritated.

"No, and you're shouting," quoth he.

Pissed now, I said, "I'm not shouting, I'm speaking at a normal volume."

"No, you're not," he smirked, in that smug tone reserved for 21-year-old recent college graduates who believe that they are the possessors of absolute knowledge.

"Yes, I am!"

"No, you're screaming."

Oh boy. The quickest way to piss me off is to tell me that I'm being too loud. My entire life I've been told that I'm too dramatic, too sensitive, too LOUD. Consequently, I've tried very hard to pitch my conversations low, and no punk-ass wanna be Jess who is backpacking across the country to "find" himself on Greyhound and most likely brought in the book he was reading and wasn't even a Powell's patron whereas I had just spend over $100 was going to tell me that I couldn't conduct a conversation in which he had no part and about which he'd have no problem if the person to whom I was speaking was present, was going to tell me that my voice is the approximate pitch and volume of an air raid siren.

What followed was not my finest moment. I stood up and shouted right in his face, "It's not a fucking movie theater..." I started to walk out, leaned over the low bookshelf behind the bench as I exited and screamed "or a library!" and left. Of course, I was on the phone with poor Christy, who was laughing, the whole time.

I'm positive that Powell's has video cameras, recorded the whole thing and will never let me back in.