Happy Dusty Debt

The other day I was standing around with my boss, talking about making use of the mass of in-store credit I’ve acquired. Yeah, he said. You’ll wanna do that soon. I don’t know how much longer we’ll have books on the shelves.

Wha-what?

I knew Happy Dusty had been on the rocks for a while now. As recently as a year ago, Powell’s, the impossibly sea-worthy vessel of literature in Portland, bought up all our inventory to keep our doors open. It’s something they do, seemingly out of goodwill, for lesser-sound indie shops. Since then we’ve restocked our shelves with second-hand books, gradually purchased from our legion of Happy Dusty loyalists. It’s something surreal to imagine a bookshop without books, yet it’s a sight I may see fairly soon; that is, if the IRS doesn’t board up the windows and padlock the door, first.

I initially assumed all this would be very hush-hush, and I felt especially privileged when my boss filled me in. Basically, the owner (whom I’ve met, once) hasn’t paid employer taxes, in, like, years. Awesome, huh? My boss (let’s call him Roger so we don’t confuse him with the owner, who we’ll just refer to as “The Owner”) seemed as shocked and nonplussed as I felt, and I deliberated writing about it here.

But after watching my assistant manager, Zoshia, explain the news to customers, I decided to do the same. With some customers have stacked up hundreds of dollars in credit by helping us fill the store again, it’s the least we can do to give them the heads-up about cashing in as soon as possible.

As for my bookshop blog? It’s kind of a cliched ending that Happy Dusty Books goes out of business. Hopefully there’ll be another way out.