HELP! WHERE'S THE NEAREST BOOKSTORE?

During a Labor Day weekend in San Francisco, Rick and I had a bad moment.  How could you have a
bad moment in such a glorious place?  We were each nearing the end of the books we had started on the flight from Atlanta.  We needed something to read.
     "Where's the nearest bookstore?" Rick asked the desk clerk in our hotel."
     "They're all gone," he replied.  "There used to be lots of bookstores around downtown San Francisco, but not anymore."
     Holy blockbuster, Batman!  What do we do now, I wondered.
     Now I know some of you may be thinking, CITY LIGHTS!  CITY LIGHTS!  But, it was too far away, as was the wonderful BOOK PASSAGE in Corte Madera.

 Upstairs in our room, I googled "San Francisco Independent Bookstore" and up popped Alexander Book Company on Second Street.  I got out my map and determined that we were only a few blocks away.  Thank goodness!  I glanced at my watch.  Five-thirty.  I called the store and, upon being told they were open till six, decided to take a brisk walk, motivated by the thought of lying awake in bed that night with nothing to read.  I took one wrong turn which cost me five minutes, but managed to arrive with ten minutes to spare.
     "Do you close at six?" I asked the clerk at the sales desk.
     "More or less," he said.
     I tried to think of a book I'd heard about that might make a good read and remembered an interview on NPR with a memoirist who had worked as a receptionist at The New Yorker starting back in the sixties.  Of course, I had no idea what the title was.  I described the book to the man at the front desk, apologizing for not knowing the title.
     "Just a second," he said, picking up the phone.  He described my request, hung up the phone and said, "she's checking."
     "Thanks," I said.  "I'll browse."
     "About a minute and a half later, his phone rang.  He talked to someone for a second and then hung up.
     "Did you find it?" I asked.
     He gave me a funny smile.  "It's called The Receptionist," he said.
     The customer standing in line laughed, as did I.
     "It was a trick question," I said.
     "It'll be on the right side of that shelf there," he said, pointing at a shelf opposite the front desk.  "If you don't find it there, I can help you find it up front."
     "Thanks," I said.
     The book was, in fact, right there in the very front of the store.  There was also another book with a very alluring title, Lillian and Dash.  A novelized story about Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett?  That will do very nicely, thank you very much.
     I plucked it up and headed to the second floor where the children's section is located.  Two booksellers were admiring the giant Candlewick bear perched in a chair overlooking Second Street.
     "I love Candlewick books," one of the booksellers said.
     I knew I had found a good place.  All was well.
     "You close at six, don't you?" I said, more as an explanation of why I was scanning the middle grade fiction at such a hurried pace, than a question.
      "More or less," one of the two women said.  And they both smiled and exchanged knowing looks.
      I slowed my scanning pace, ever so slightly, smiling and exclaiming loudly when I ran across a copy of Margaret Mahy's The Great Piratical Rumbustification.
     "I love that you have this book," I said.
     The booksellers smiled again.  
     When it was clearly six o'clock, more or less, I grabbed a copy of
Bo at Ballard Creek, by Kirkpatrick Hill with illustrations by LeUyen Pham and headed back downstairs to make my purchase.
     "Thank you so much," I told the booksellers.  "I'll be back tomorrow morning with my husband."
     "We open at ten o'clock," the man at the front desk told me.
     In my head, I silently added, "more or less," as I happily headed down Market Street toward Union Square, secure in the knowledge that I would have something delightful to read in bed that evening.