When Lydia first moved to Chicago, she worked at a big used bookstore of the sort one finds near a big university. In her LiveJournal, she referred to her employer as Bookstore X. After several months, Lydia left temporarily to take up an internship at White Wolf near Atlanta. She was told Bookstore X would keep her job for her. But they didn't! Fortunately, she walked across the street to O'Gara & Wilson and got a better job. But she refers to her employer now as Bookstore Y because there already is a Bookstore X.
Well, I once worked for Bookstore S (for sui generis, here in Hastings-on-Hudson but no longer, alas, in existence). So, I decided, I now work at Bookstore C, for Chain bookstore.
Bookstore A would imply a bookstore that's primus inter pares, and I don't know what that would be -- the once-upon-a-time WordsWorth in Cambridge, perhaps? The old Scribners? I know -- it would be the campus bookstore I frequented during college. Not the college bookstore, the independent bookstore. I remember -- probably incorrectly but lovingly -- that it had a wall of Signet Classics. I bought a new paperback of Defoe's Diary of the Plague Year for 35 cents. And of course there were no orange or green spines because Penguin paperbacks were not sold in the U.S. in those days.
Bookstore B could be either Barnes & Noble or Bankrupt Borders. So Bookstore C it will have to be. I am not sure bookstores have the wonder in them they used to have back when they were rare. And boy -- the thrill of spotting an orange or green spine in a used bookstore! But that's another story.
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2 comments:
I am flattered that you are taking my naming strategy! But I wonder if a new approach should be used. Perhaps you should call it Bookstore Omega, or Bookstore Orange, or Bookstore Class 1.
No, no, no, when you're on to a good thing, why change it? If one or two other family members begin to work in bookstores and we have Bookstore H and Bookstore L cluttering up our blogs, then let's worry.
[hesitates, thinking] Bookstore Omega sounds ominous. Bookstore Beta sounds interesting, but it's misleading.[contemplates other Greek letters] Bookstore Lambda has a clear implication too. Bookstore Omicron? Feh. Bookstore Eta, Mu, Xi, Rho ... honestly, I can't feign enthusiasm, but thanks for the suggestion.
Bookstore Orange! Stop, drop, and roll, or run and hide.
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