“It’s always been a dream of mine to open a bookstore.” We must hear this two or three times a week, sweetly confessed by starry-eyed book lovers. I don’t have the heart to tell them that, when you do have a bookstore, your dreams — the real ones, the nightly ones — change just a tad.<\/p>\n
Here are a few recurring highlights from actual dreams Josie and I have had over the years:<\/p>\n
The store is full of customers, you’re alone, and the cash register and POS system aren’t working.<\/p>\n
The sections have all been moved; in fact, they’re changing while you look at them.<\/p>\n
Your store is suddenly outside.<\/p>\n
You’ve had to move your store from a great location to a lousy one, and grieve.<\/p>\n
You need to get to work and can’t find your store in the strange city you suddenly find yourself in.<\/p>\n
You’re trying to get to work, but the elevator you step into goes sideways, at a fast clip, in the opposite direction of where you need to be.<\/p>\n
Your store layout has become a honeycomb of little rooms with organization that makes no sense and bad lighting.<\/p>\n
You discover a whole sales floor’s worth of overstock you have to deal with.<\/p>\n
The sales meeting you’re in lasts a full week.<\/p>\n
There’s an angry customer at the counter demanding the book he’s been waiting for — for eight months.<\/p>\n
You’ve got a huge line at the register and you’ve forgotten how to type.<\/p>\n
You have all new staff members you don’t know, and they just stand around chatting while customers stream by, needing help.<\/p>\n
Suddenly you can’t remember a single Dr. Seuss title.<\/p>\n
You’ve just recommended a bunch of perfect books to a teen, only to find you’re out of all of them. (Oh wait, that wasn’t a dream. That just happened on Friday.)<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
After thirteen years in this changeable business, when people tell me “I’d like to open a bookstore when I retire,” I just smile and say, “Good luck with that. It’s a beautiful dream.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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