Sometimes, owning a bookstore can be rough. I had the idea, before we opened, that we would be greeting crowds of eager readers every morning, discussing our favorite books over coffee, and ending each satisfying day with a gourmet dinner cooked by grateful customers, then off to bed to be serenaded to sleep by unicorns.
There is a possibility that I might have idealized things a tiny bit.
In reality, business is slow right now. I like to blame the weather, the recent holidays, and the Kindle. I've found myself on more than a few days drinking all of the free coffee myself, and then deciding that painting a replica of the Sistine Chapel ceiling might be fun. (It was not. Nor did I remember that I am not, in fact, Michelangelo.) We have a few regulars, like Ryan, our local horror fan, who is always looking for our latest Jeff Strand and Rick Hautala arrivals. There's also Donna, who likes to pop in from time to time to scope out our Patricia Cornwells.
Occasionally, though, we get our crackpots, too. There was that one guy who came in, looked around, and then asked me if we had any "literature." I looked at him, looked around the room, and said "umm ... what?"
"This is all popular fiction. Do you have any literature?" (He pronounced it lit-RA-chur.)
So I pointed to our classics section. "We have the Collected Stories of William Faulkner, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, that kind of stuff..."
He was not impressed. "Is that what you call lit-RA-chur?" He actually crinkled his nose at me, as if I'd passed gas. (I had not.)
"Well, I've got Pressure by Jeff Strand, if you're interested." (He wasn't, which is just as well, because Ryan snatched it out of my hands before I could finish the sentence.)
Sadly, we were not able to satisfy LitRAchur Man's needs, and he will not be back. But for the rest of you, we've got good books, and free coffee.
There is a possibility that I might have idealized things a tiny bit.
In reality, business is slow right now. I like to blame the weather, the recent holidays, and the Kindle. I've found myself on more than a few days drinking all of the free coffee myself, and then deciding that painting a replica of the Sistine Chapel ceiling might be fun. (It was not. Nor did I remember that I am not, in fact, Michelangelo.) We have a few regulars, like Ryan, our local horror fan, who is always looking for our latest Jeff Strand and Rick Hautala arrivals. There's also Donna, who likes to pop in from time to time to scope out our Patricia Cornwells.
Occasionally, though, we get our crackpots, too. There was that one guy who came in, looked around, and then asked me if we had any "literature." I looked at him, looked around the room, and said "umm ... what?"
"This is all popular fiction. Do you have any literature?" (He pronounced it lit-RA-chur.)
So I pointed to our classics section. "We have the Collected Stories of William Faulkner, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, that kind of stuff..."
He was not impressed. "Is that what you call lit-RA-chur?" He actually crinkled his nose at me, as if I'd passed gas. (I had not.)
"Well, I've got Pressure by Jeff Strand, if you're interested." (He wasn't, which is just as well, because Ryan snatched it out of my hands before I could finish the sentence.)
Sadly, we were not able to satisfy LitRAchur Man's needs, and he will not be back. But for the rest of you, we've got good books, and free coffee.
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