Another One Bites the Dust

I was depressed when I found out that the Alameda Borders was closing, but they assured me that the larger store in Emeryville would remain open. However, when Bob and I drove over there yesterday, we saw big "STORE CLOSING" banners draped over the windows. We went inside to discover books scattered in disarray as people pawed over the sales. "What happened?" I asked one of the clerks. "The people at the Alameda store told me you were staying open."

"We thought so, but the landlord decided to lease the space to another tenant so we're closing."

I was desolate. To tell the truth, I don't actually buy many books at Borders except for cookbooks, but I hang out there a lot, especially in the summer when I'm looking for an air-conditioned place to escape from the heat. And besides, Borders is what keeps the adjacent Emeryville Public Market alive. Bookstores are community gathering places and it's a blow when they disappear, which they have been, slowly but surely, over the years.

OK, you can order via Amazon. But you can't browse, not properly, that is. You can't thumb through the books. That restricted virtual thumbing doesn't do it for me. So I picked out one last cookbook for old time's sake and stood in line. When I got to the counter, I told the clerk that I was feeling sad. "This will probably be the last time I come here."

"You should come again," he said. ""They've sent us a ton of books to get rid of. As the time nears to closing, the bargains will get even better."

"But it will too much like Dickens."

He looked blank, as clerks in Borders tend to at any literary reference. "You know. Charles Dickens? A Christmas Carol? The chapter where Scrooge dies and the beggars come and haggle over his possessions, even stripping his deathbed while his corpse is lying there?"

"Oh, yeah," he said, not comprehending. "I guess."