Headscratchers / You've Got Mail

• Why do the shoppers in the grocery store berate Kathleen and tell her to move to a different line AFTER she's been rung up? Their time is already wasted, so they may as well encourage Rose to run her credit card now rather than waste more time having Kathleen unbag and gather up her stuff in order to go get in another line.
  • People usually aren't very rational. This goes double when they're frustrated or angry.
  • The customer behind her points out there was a "cash only" sign that she should have noticed.
• Why is Kathleen so shocked that her store was failing after all of her media appearances? Almost every time she was in the news, she essentially kept pointing out “My competitor’s books are cheaper and in mint condition”, said that Fox Books should leave the area and didn’t spend nearly as much time saying why local bookstores like hers should be supported instead, and (from what we are shown,) didn’t actually bother to try to compete with Fox Books in any meaningful way business-wise. Joe himself is shocked at how expensive the books at her store are regardless of quality, and it’s likely other potential customers that checked out her store after seeing her in the news had the same reaction.
  • She knew as soon as she heard that Fox Books was moving in that her store was doomed. She's just putting up a brave front, and holding on to her store as long as she could. As the movie shows there wasn't really any way she could compete. She had all the favorable media coverage, but in the end her customers valued cheaper and more books more than they valued the charm of her store or her knowledge of children's books.
• Once Joe found out who Kathleen was, didn't it seem like he was toying with her? He spent weeks doing things like convincing her to ask NY 152 if he was married — and when she does, he (as NY 152) answers with "Why would you ask me that?"