Dangerous neighborhoods

Now that our department is completely moved into our new downtown office space I’ve been taking my lunch time to go out walking, get some exercise, and explore. I had no idea how dangerous an area of town we’re in. Had I know what it would be like I might have protested back when my manager asked how we’d feel about moving.

There is not one, but TWO used book stores within half a block–one just across the street! I’ve only visited one so far, but it’s huge! (With long, sharp, pointy TEETH! And it can LEAP!) It’s about half the size of our local Barnes & Noble in floor-space, and probably has as much shelf-space as the whole store. It’s the next best thing to a library I can imagine! Musty old book smell? You could stand there for hours just breathing it in.

There is a particular book I’ve been thinking of picking up lately. Amazon’s got it, but I try to shop locally whenever I can. So I approached the clerk to check, expecting to hear that there was no way they could keep it all cataloged and I’d just have to look through the shelves. I was partly right. They just got in a batch of 100,000 books, and those are not yet cataloged. But when she looked up the book I was looking for they had it. She even could show me which row of shelves it was supposed to be on. But she didn’t seem overly fond of my chances.

Well, I looked through about half a dozen bookcases before I found it, but I found it. The clerk was impressed. And, oddly enough, she was happy to sell it to me. She would have been happy to sell me the other half-dozen books that caught my eye while I was looking for the one, I imagine. It took real willpower to walk out with just one book, I tell you.

Dangerous, dangerous place. The other store doesn’t look nearly so large. Perhaps I should go there instead.