Sarah Palin Saves Local Bookstore Owner’s Butt

from Morning Satirical News:

Junction City, November 25, 2009–Brisk sales of Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue are saving the Main Street Book Emporium from the scrap heap of local businesses that go belly up after Walmart comes to town.

Jim Exlibrius, founder and owner of the 20-year-old bookstore conveniently located kitty corner across a busy intersection from the Krispy Kreme, told employees this morning that his butt and their jobs are safe through April Fool’s Day because Palin’s bestselling book is flying off the shelves “like bats in a tornado.”

“I almost lost my shirt after my window display for Audrey Niffenegger’s spooky “Her Fearful Symmetry” scared away all my customers,” said Exlibris. “Now, I’m making money like a blind water salesman in the Sahara Desert because every woman in this town has always wanted to ‘go rogue’ and ever man in this town has wanted to know a woman who ‘went rogue.'”

According to informed sources at publisher HarperCollins, the Main Street Book Emporium has sold up to 25% of the 2.5 million copies of Going Rogue now in print. Exlibris told reporters that he expects Junction City readers will force HarperCollins to make a tenth trip back to the printer to keep up with demand.

“I not only asked Sarah to come to my store for a book signing so huge that it will make J. K. Rowling look like a wannabee, I urged her (Sarah) to stay here as my wife,” said Exlibris. “How can a man not love a woman who writes, ‘With the gray Talkeetna Mountains in the distance and the first light covering of snow about to descend on Pioneer Peak, I breathed in an autumn bouquet that combined everything small-town America with splashes of the last frontier.'”

Police reports show that since Going Rogue was released earlier this month, more fights have broken out at the Main Street Book Emporium than Mona’s Biker Bar, Hot Balls Miniature Golf Magic Lane, and Ghost-of-a-Chance Cemetery combined.

“If we didn’t have a continuous presence at Krispy Kreme,” said Chief Kruller, “people would have been killed or worse at that bookstore. Jim just can’t keep enough Sarah on the shelf to satisfy everyone.”

Sources at city hall indicated that if Palin comes to town to do a reading and signing, Mayor Clark Trail is prepared to give her the key to the city as soon as he can find it (the key).

“He thinks it was in his gone-fishing trousers and must have ended up at the bottom of Miller’s Pond after last year’s incident with that school of rogue crappies,” councilman Calvin Knox said.

The Albino County Literary Club and Pecan Pie Society complains that its winter discussion schedule has been “more tangled than kite string in a Charlie Brown tree” because members sent to Exlibris’ store to buy one thing keep coming out with a sack full of Rogues.

“Just a couple of days ago, I sent them there to buy Jeff Shaara’s new new book No Less Than Victory, and they came out with Going Rogue, proving, I guess, that winning isn’t everything,” said society president Marianne Stemple.

Exlibris confessed to Star-Gazer editors that reporter Jock Stewart is the only man in town who refuses to buy Palin’s book, and “who the hell is more rogue than he is?”

Stewart reportedly maintains that when Palin buys his book, he’ll buy her book and even try out a halibut taco, a reindeer sausage and other delights from the land of the midnight sun Exlibris is giving away free with every copy of Going Rogue through the Black Friday weekend.

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Copyright (c) Malcolm R. Campbell, author of Jock Stewart and the Missing sea of Fire where you’ll find Jim Exlibris, Chief Kruller, Councilman Knox, Mayor Clark Trail and–of course–Jock Stewart are all going rogue.

Bookstore Owner Subdues Robber with Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Junction City, May 29, 2009–When Moe Anderson walked into the Main Street Book Emporium at high noon yesterday with a SIG SAUER P238 pistol in his pocket and robbery in his heart, he expected to leave with all the money in the cash drawer.

Jim Exlibris, owner of Main Street Book Emporium, believes dead hearing-aid batteries and author Susanna Clarke saved him a lot of money.

“I was waiting on a customer at the main register during the lunch hour when a man came in shouting, ‘wash up, wash up,'” said Exlibris. “The guy pointed to a bulge in the front of his trousers and held up his hands, so I assumed he needed our restroom at the back of the store.”

According to Maud Lukins, who was purchasing a hard cover copy of of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Starnge and Mr. Norrell for her grandson Arnie’s 15th birthday, the book store owner was obviously “deaf as a post” even though he was wearing two, $3,500 hearing aids from a name brand company.

“That rude, scrawny little guy who burst in and interrupted my purchase wasn’t happy to see me at all,” said Lukins. “He really did have a gun in his pocket and was saying ‘hands up.’ Even though I felt utterly discounted, I had the presence of mind to scream and that got Jim’s attention.”

Exlibris told police, who responded from the doughnut shop after the emergency was over, that Anderson became frustrated by the lack of personal attention and attempted to pull the gun out of his pocket, but it got stuck and went off.

“The thing made a horrible noise and I thought we were about to be dead,” said Lukins. “That’s when Jim picked up Arnie’s beautiful birthday book and threw it against Anderson’s head. Anderson was knocked out cold.”

Chief Kruller said Anderson didn’t hurt anyone because he was “shooting blanks.” Known to police across Texas as the bookstore bandit, Anderson’s “success” is purportedly based on intimidation rather than violence.

“If my hearing aid batteries had been working, I would have understood the guy, handed him a wad of money and then over charged old lady Lukins and the rest of my loyal customers to offset the negative cash flow,” Exlibris said. “Praise the Lord for Ms. Clarke’s 326,729 words and her 2.9-pound novel.”

Police ballistic experts claim that had Exlibris tried to subdue Anderson with a light-weight Silhouette romance, the bandit would still be at large.

from Morning Satirical News

Coming soon, from Vanilla Heart Publishing: “Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire,” a novel by Malcolm R. Campbell.