Staffing work doesn't mesh with my personality either - I'm one of the weirdos that likes retail too. I do not like my new job, but where I live retail is dead. The local Barnes and Noble was one of the better places to work in the industry here and the other places I saw were awful. The other job that I had at a clothing store was miserable. I was also pretty tired of having to work two part time jobs at 58+ hours total a week just to make ends meet.
I'd rather be talking to people about books or working in receiving than silently staring at a computer screen for hours every day but I need to eat and keep warm during the winters, so I have to adapt. If the company still exists this holiday season I'll see if I can temp at my old store on the weekends-- I miss the people I worked with every day.
I hope you find a way to keep doing the work you enjoy, but you're never too old to start over or learn new things. There are a lot of temps where I work and most of them don't have degrees.