I hate shopping...

I don’t like shopping. I have loathed it for as long as I can remember. I can recall having to run errands with my mom when I was little, going from store to store, slowly dieing of boredom. Even when it is to buy something for myself, I can’t help but feeling like I’m walking into a deathtrap. Every time I embark on a mission to buy something, I usually try to start out positive, but by the end, I’m so agitated by the whole situation that I can’t wait to get out of there. There’s something about the bright fluorescent lights, the long, tiled aisles, and the gigantic shelves that are filled with absolutely nothing you need. I just want to get in and get out. It doesn’t matter if it’s shopping for food or clothes, I want to get out of there as fast as I can.
Of course, there are different types of stores. There are the super, hyper, mega, warehouse stores that have wall to wall and floor to ceiling “stuff”. When you step inside you feel like you feel like you’ve been swallowed by the merchandise it self. Then there are the small and very intimate shops. These are very different from the mega-stores, but, honestly, these stores intimidate me even more. I always feel that I don’t belong, and that everything I do is being watched and scrutinized.
That seems to be view of shopping. Not too optimistic. However, there is one store I don’t mind going to: Barnes and Noble. Sure, right away you’re going to think: “Books? What a nerd!” Yes, it’s true, I do like books, but that’s not the only reason. The atmosphere of that bookstore is quite different from almost any store I’ve been to. It doesn’t fall into my stereotype of a normal store. It seems to has it’s own rules that are quite separate from the normal shopping center. It’s a safe haven from the chaos and insanity of the normal shopping experience.
I remember a long time ago when I first went to Barnes and Noble. I went after church on a Sunday with my family when it was a fairly new building. We had had lunch at Southpointe, and we decided to step inside and take a look. What I first noticed then, I still notice today when I walk inside: the smell. It’s quite a different smell from the normal smell of the cocktail of cleaning products or the smell of clothes or of differing items that normally overpower customers when the step inside a store. This smell is distinctly coffee based, but there’s something else to it. It is definitely not the same as walking into a Starbucks. Maybe it’s the smell of coffee added with the smell of new books. Somehow a smell is produced that can be described as “inviting”; quite different from the normal warehouse disinfectant normally encountered.
I have been to Barnes and Noble numerous times since that one Sunday. Sometimes to look for a new book that I had heard about, other times to buy a specific book for a class. Still other times I just want to browse through the stacks of books laying about on tables. The books are arranged in a peculiar way I’ve noticed. They books that are located on the shelves aren’t put away like you would put away books in your bookshelf at home. Some of the books are put away in the traditional way with the spine facing out. However, others are put away so that the cover is facing out. Of course this takes up more space than the traditional way, but this way, the books themselves seem so be saying, “Look at me! Pick me up and look at my cover! Scan my pages!” The tables located around the store, with their numerous stacked and scattered books seem to be saying the same thing. Quite different than the “Don’t touch the merchandise” mentality of most other stores.
This store seems to welcome loitering. They want you to spend time there, look around, sit down in one of the chairs and read even if you don’t intend to buy the book. The employees are always there to help, of course, but they don’t interrogate you when you walk in the door. I can’t recollect how many times I get pulled into a different store by some friends who want to just “look around” and right away an employee walks up and asks, “Can I help you with anything?” Of course the answer is the monotone: “No thanks. We’re just looking.” For some reason I can’t help but think they hate that response. I’m sure they’d like to just snap back, “We don’t need a bunch of people just standing around here. If you’re not going to buy something, then jus leave already!” However, the employees at Barnes and Noble are inclined to just leave you alone. They probably tend to think if you look like you’re browsing, you probably are.
Barnes and Noble is not an “in and out” kind of store. People walk around, not looking for anything in particular. Or if they are looking for something, they might just be looking for ideas, not a book to buy. For example, I remember seeing this guy stand at the same bookshelf for about twenty-five minutes. He would lean on the bookshelf looking for any title that caught his eye, then he would pick up an interesting title only to put it back moments later. Eventually he was even sitting in the aisle, reading a book that had interested him. Yet, this is okay at Barnes and Noble. Where else could you actually sit in the aisle of a store while making use of the merchandise and not be bothered by the employees?
In the café, the customers sit at the tables, drinking their various beverages and eating a muffin or piece of cake while minding their own business. One young man is sitting next to the wall, presumably doing homework while listening to his Ipod. In another area, two older women are knitting what looks to be a blanket while talking about some recent gossip or some other such subject. At another table, a mother reads a book to her daughter while the grandmother is reading a magazine and drinking a cup of coffee. Where else could you do this? Yes, you could say that this is in the café area, but the café area itself is seamlessly woven into the rest of the store. There is no dividing line between the two.
As I’ve shown, it’s obviously more than just a bookstore. It’s a place where you can come and just look around at the books, momentarily escaping from your every day life either by looking at the landscapes of Italy in one of the large, coffee table books, or by sitting down in one of the secluded chairs and reading a chapter or two of a book you just haven’t gotten around to reading yet. Sure, this might sound like a public service announcement advocating literacy, but that doesn’t make it less true.
I guess, lastly, I just have many good memories of that place. I can remember countless times of wasting time among the bookshelves after school. On other days, I would sit around with a couple of friends and talk about the future, complain about the present, and laugh about the past. I can remember sitting at the café with some friends, proof reading our literary analyses due for our high school English class only to end up getting off task, which only extends the whole process by several hours. Because this store itself seemingly never changes, those memories can almost stay frozen in time. The atmosphere of Barnes and Noble is very unusual. Maybe it’s the memories that color my view of the store. If it’s the memories or just the welcoming atmosphere that always stays the same, either way Barnes and Noble sets itself in a class of its own.