An amusing thing happened at Borders

16 years ago

I forgot to tell you all about my Border's story. After my book club decided on which titles we would read for this year, my friend and I went to a sale at our local Border's store which was closing. (Everything was 40 percent off.)

Anyway, I heard the clerk talking to this man who had a piece of pink paper in his hand. He told the clerk that his wife was in a book group and he needed to find the titles on the list. After I purchased my cartload of books, I looked around for this man to see if I might sneak a peek at his wife's book club's list. I spotted him and approached to ask if I might see the list. The first title on the list was "The Reluctant Fundamentalist," which our group also planned to read. As I scanned the list further, I discovered that all the titles were the same as our list. I then asked the man the name of his wife, and was surprised to learn it was a member of my group. In fact, somewhat to my embarassement, I had met this man a couple of times in the past. (He didn't remember me either.)

Anyway, we had a good laugh about that.

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Comments (7)

deborah47
16 years ago
Funny!

I wish I could be at a Borders closing but then again maybe not, I don't know if check book could handle it. :)
ccrdmrbks
16 years ago
your Borders has shopping carts? I wish mine did.
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colormeconfused
16 years ago
I would need a moving van and a home equity loan if the local Borders planned to close and marked everything down.
woodnymph2_gw
16 years ago
So is this a nation wide trend? Are all, or many, of the Borders stores closing? If so, I need to max out my credit cards and rent a U-haul it...... :-D
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16 years ago
Borders are closing all their non-US stores except for two (London and Dubai from memory). We are waiting to hear who has bought the Australian ones. I don't know about the US stores, but do know that they have made a large loss in Australia over the last couple of years, apparently written off against the US operation.
cindydavid4
16 years ago
I hope they don't close - I much prefer it to B/N, I like their reward program that I don't have to pay for, and think they have a better selection. But I've often wondered how long having two giants competing would last. We have 2 Borders and 3 B/N within a 15 mile radius.
rottenlivia
16 years ago
I, for one, miss the book stores of old. I grew up in Springfield, MA and we had a wonderful shop in downtown Springfield named simply 'Johnson's Bookstore'. The shop was actually in two buildings with a small street or walkway seperating them. The front shop was all 'new' books on the first floor. The lower level held toys and office supplies, school supplies and such. The real pearl to me was in the second floor of the second building. The first floor held art supplies, the second floor held all the second hand and antiquated books. Ahhhh!!! Every friday for four years of high school I walked downtown from my school and haunted the aisles and shelves. Ten dollars went far and many times I secreted coveted volumes behind other books on higher or lower shelves. It smelled....old and..rich and I loved the old cases of Life Magazines and post cards from other lands and times. I would catch the last city bus home loaded with my 'treasures'. It was in operation for nearly 80 years, I believe. Somehow, nice as the new B&N's or Borders are, they just don't have the personality that I miss so much. Does anyone else out there come from Springfield MA and remember Johnson's fondly? Kresky's Drug store at Baystate West? The Silver Shell Restaurant on it's top floor? The Pretzel vendor in the Baystate Mezzanine? Kreskey's always had, on Friday's, fresh stacks of 45's from area juke boxes on sale. I bought myself silly. At 13 and 14 yrs. old, books and records ruled in the 70's.

An amusing thing happened at Borders

Comments (7)

deborah47

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