A Testimony

I had a message on my voicemail this morning, and looked to see whose call I had missed. It was Barnes & Noble. Yes, I have B&N in my phonebook, I'm a dork. But it's turned out to be really handy as I'm out in search of a book or CD, and instead of returning home to look up B&N's number or driving to the store on the chance that they have it, I can just call on the spot. It's my favorite store, why shouldn't it be so honoured? Anway, I couldn't imagine why they'd be calling me... unless they had actually responded to my application! Indeed, they want an interview. After years of wanting to work there and applying for a job there whenever I was out of work, they have finally responded. Oh, but why not a week ago before I accepted another job?! I shake my fist at the skies. Several people have urged me to interview for this job and quit the bookstore, which hasn't even properly started yet. Believe me, I'm tempted.

As it offers tastey and expensive Starbucks products while you browse the shelves, Barnes & Noble is the combination of two corporate chains I feel I should morally dislike. I should dislike them because it's difficult to compete with the monstrous B&N and Starbucks if you're a fledgeling specialty bookstore or a local coffeeshop. But I love them both. I love how huge B&N can be, they so often have what you're looking for and so much of what you're not looking for. It combines four of my favorite things: literature, film, music, and cafes. In Matt's eloquent way of putting it, it combines the scent of books and coffee to create the delicious aroma of intelligent, East Coast life. In high school, my friends and I used to hang out at both B&N and Starbucks, talking, writing bad poetry, planning book clubs, etc. Maybe my love for these places is merely my association with good times. Partly, perhaps. For some reason, though whenever I visit B&N I spend a long time there, I never see anyone I know, or even awkwardly recognize. It's like I'm in my own world of artists. It's relaxing. And, in a self-contradicting effort to become the nonchalant chic cafe of the neighborhood, the two local cafes are trying too hard to achieve what Starbucks so effortlessly exudes. All I know is that whenever I walk into a B&N or a Starbucks, no matter where it is in the world, I get the same, comforting feeling. Like the Gospel, they're the same wherever you go.