One Last Trip to Borders

I had my last visit to Borders this evening. They had two days left in their going out of business sale. It was very sad. It was crowded, of course. When you mark anything down 80-90 percent off, that tends to draw a crowd.

The atmosphere was weird. There was tension in the air, maybe because every time you turned around someone was RIGHT behind you. There were people in front of every shelf, poring over the leftovers from previous levels of markdown.

Seeing what was left was interesting. Most of the nonfiction was gone with the exception of some outdated software and business titles and books about the operation of various models of Nikon and Canon SLR cameras. There were a LOT of books about 2012 end of the world theories and such. Apparently the literate masses aren’t overly concerned about it.

Two shelves of Manga remained. They may have overestimated demand on that one. Many romance novels remained as well.

We found zero children’s books and zero toys. In fact, the once very adorable and fun children’s section looked like this.

A woman there picked the foam decorations off the wall and took them to the counter to purchase them. Talk about depressing.

The worst part was when we went to check out. These two little shithead (that’s right I said it) eleven year old, obnoxious boy brats in front of us actually hassled the cashier about losing her job. By the time we reached her to check out, she was practically in tears. I wanted to give her a hug. And I am not a hugger of strangers or mere acquaintances.

It was truly disgusting. I understand they’re just kids, but I mean damn, they were old enough to have some kind of compassion for someone losing their job. If I ever caught my kids treating anyone like that, please believe the consequences would be significant.

Anyway, thus ends the beautiful Borders store. I hope someone else bookish moves in. Bonus points if they hire the Borders employees and put in a coffee bar.

_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1