There are days at Printed Page when we can go for hours without seeing a soul. We dust and straighten and wonder if maybe we’re the only people in Denver who didn’t get the evacuation order. Then there are days like Friday.
Before I could get the lights on, a group of professors from Texas came in and did some serious damage to our supply of credit card tape. They said they could spend all day in the store. They also said they couldn’t live in Denver because they’d go broke buying our books. They declined my offer to let them live with us rent-free.
While they were loading up their purchases, the crowd started to grow. A young woman came in with her mother. The mother found a Christmas-themed book in German she was excited to have. She told me she’d spent a career in their foreign service and spoke seven languages. I confessed to almost knowing one. Meanwhile, her daughter was in some kind of bibliographic rapture that was punctuated by ooohs and ahhhs.
I have to say: It’s a little embarrassing to hear people be so effusive in their praise of the store. On the one hand, as Mark Twain said, I can live for two weeks on a compliment. On the other, I think, “Well, that’s nice, lady, but have you ever been in ______?” I think that sometimes, you’re so close to something, you don’t realize just what you have.
Later in the day, a woman came in and asked, “Where’s Lola?” Lola was our shop dog for our first seven years: A friendly greeter who needed but a minute to train customers to rub her belly. She died three years ago, but people still remember. Maybe it’s not just the books that bring some people in.