Joe is Bookstores

I heard in the news that Borders is going bankrupt.

Good.

Borders and Barnes & Noble (is there a difference?) are the Starbucks of bookstores. You go in there because it's the only place to

get decent coffee, but you can't wait to leave. You're surrounded by unwashed hipsters, in their flannel shirts and faux fedoras, just waiting to jump out at you and pose, begging you to notice their ironic t-shirts and therefore validate their entire miserable existence.

And since 90% of their visible stock is calendars of kittens and diet books by failed celebrities, you're forced to interact with one of their zombie-like employees to

verify that they don't indeed have the book you came in for. Oh yes, the employees. Take a m

oment to bask in their putrid hatred at your invasion of their gossip time. When and if you do manage to annoy them into grudgingly paying attention to you, enjoy industry knowledge that makes make Radio Shack start looking like a temple of intellectualism.

As you beat your hurried retreat, stumble over the brand-new pre-grunged fixed-gear bicycles the hipsters have left strewn about in the entrance. Take a moment to mourn the classics slowly mildewing in the tupperware bargain bin.

Then go home and get the book you want off the internet, for a buck fifty. Or find your local struggling used bookstore. You know, the old guy who is working a second job to keep his bookstore open because he loves his books too much to sell them? Who doesn't have one single kitten calender?

Fuck off and die, Borders. You won't be missed.