I Take My Coffee Black

The meter is running and the taxi is in park. Normally I’d be outside of a strip club or message parlor, this time it’s a book store. I’m waiting for my passenger to return.

The large poster declaring 20% - 40% off looms over my cab parked outside of Borders Books on N Dale Mabry. This well publicized sale has brought customers to this store in record amounts. The idling of my engine cuts through the conversations of happy patrons leaving with newly prized possessions.

It’s just after sunset. I’d normally be home drinking beer at this hour - a well ingrained habit since the economy fell apart like a two dollar watch.  Habits are hard to change as you get older.

I turn the radio down as a motorist asks if I can move up a bit. In over fifteen years of coming to this store I’ve never seen it this busy. I guess I’m not the only one that read the newspaper article about the store closing. Then it hits me - Why does Tampa (whose economy is supposedly tied to tourism) have so many people that read books. We are not supposed to be Boston?

I think back over the last decade or so. I have spent a lot of time in Borders. Coffee, reading, chess, browsing, music, liberal lap toppers, this place had it all, a great way to kill a Sunday afternoon and relax. You could have a bit of a repose from the ‘real world’ as books took you to other places and experiences that you one day planed to get around too, one of these days.

The Seattle’s Best Café. Yes, that was the first thing you saw as you walked in the door. Get your espresso and stare at twenty thousand square feet of wonder, knowledge and entertainment. In the next couple of hours, you would walk out smarter and more at peace with yourself then when you walked in. All of this augmented by a fresh cup of Joe (I take my mine black).

Coffee in a book store is Popcorn at the movies. Would it not be a shame if one day all things are by Amazon or Kindle? To me it would be like going to a prostitute for love or eating steak with a balloon on your tongue. You would still get the same knowledge and nutrition - so what’s your problem?

I do think it is a problem.

In the future they say you will just take a pill for everything you need or pick you kids out of a test tube (I prefer the old fashion way).

I once met Jack Harris at a book signing here. I once saw happy kids at Harry Potter night with expressions on their faces not seen since the family trip to Disney World. Do we really want all this to just go away?  It is just all about the discount? What ever happened to smelling the roses?

Anyway, my fare comes back to the taxi and tells me there were at least eighty people in line with all the cash registers ringing. You hear that Borders….You finally figured out how to get Amazons money.  Perhaps there is hope for Western Civilization.