It was with a heavy heart that I heard last week about the local Borders stores closing, including the one that I’ve shopped at several times over the years since I moved up to the Valley. I’ve done large purchases for the library there, so large that they gave me a book truck to take around the store with me while I shopped. (Between that and my ID badge dangling from my lanyard, more than one person mistook me for an employee. One even followed me around, as if to make sure I really wasn’t just refusing to help her.) I’ve done little personal purchases there. K and I went there at least once while we were newly dating. It was one of the first places I took Lil Miss, all curled up in a borrowed baby sling. It’s where I took Lil Miss to pick out a book for herself last year, after we realized she had actually started reading. And it’s where I took Lil Miss (who has recently given up her afternoon nap) yesterday so K could have the house to herself and grade in peace.
Lil Miss picked out a Mo Willems book and a Peanuts bookmark for herself, and I nabbed a Toy Story 3 Sticker Book for her that looked really neat in the store, but turned out to be rather disappointing (for pretty much the reason in the reviews over there – the stickers don’t stick) and a United States map floor puzzle that K is excited to do with her once this round of grading is done.
And, of course, I perused the knitting section, which was nearly empty. Even most of the knitting magazines were gone.
I think that issue of Vogue Knitting might have been the last one in the store. As best I could tell, the cross stitch magazines were long gone.
The line was long. We were probably in line at least 20 minutes, maybe 30. I had a nice chat with the lady behind us, who was also buying some knitting magazines. Lil Miss wandered from one display to another, standing books in the empty spots. (Can’t imagine where she gets that impulse from.)
It was one of those moments, really, that I wished Alison Bechdel was still doing a semi-monthly comic. I’d love to hear Mo and Jezanna on the fate of the local “Bounders” bookstore.