What goes on at Borders, stays at Borders.

True Story, Swear to Miu: Adventures in buying Strawberry Marshmallow. But take heart from these comforting words in the comments section:

As someone who works at a Borders, I can tell you that 1. most of the booksellers are clueless about manga, whether it be pervy or non-pervy, and the ones that aren't read it themselves, and 2. the female employees, at least, are a lot more likely to snicker about the guy that comes up with a stack of porno mags.

So rest assured that at least the cashiers won't call the cops on you when you pick up your copy of Kodomo no Jikan / Nymphet!

For maximum embarrassment potential, however, I like to stop by the local Sanseido Books every couple of months and pick up some combination of dork-ass magazines like Animedia, Newtype, UpToBoy, or Kindai*. The clerks are too polite to pass judgement, of course, but I always have to wonder if they're thinking what I think they're thinking. Especially since you can set a clock by my buying patterns.

*I buy it for the actresses and starlets, but you always have to wade through like 20 pages of boy bands to get to them.

Also, some Borders stores are starting to impose time limits on would-be freeloaders who park in the aisle and read all day.