Not enough data, surely

At the Louisiana Book Festival, a woman came up to the table, picked up the book and gestured at me with it--as if I might not know what book she was talking about otherwise.

She asked, "Is this good for a book club?" She never even bothered to read the back.


"I think so," I said. "I'm speaking to a book club about it this weekend, in fact."

"Oh what book club? I belong to Amy's book club."

"I don't think it has a name."

"Oh, okay." And she was gone, sort of careening towards the next brightly colored book. Her companion stood in the middle of the tent, as if he wanted to be an equal distance away from all the author signing tables. He seemed to be laughing to himself.

I didn't expect the woman to return but she did. "All right I'm gonna buy this," and she proceeded to unpack her Nook. She picked up my book and not finding what she wanted, asked, "What's your name!?!?"

"Laura Ellen Scott."

"Okay I found it. " Thumbs device roughly. "There, I bought your book! I don't like carrying a bunch of books around."

"Thank you very much."

"Now sign a piece of paper?"

I grabbed a post-it, scribbled my name on it.

"Yeah," she said, taking it from me. She zoomed over to her chuckling friend, gave him the post-it and said, "Here I got you this."

He seemed satisfied.