Do Nice People Get Discounts? part lll

Michael came after class. Because he’s under 21, he relieved my position at the counter while I went out to get the 40s and Doritos.

Halfway through our bottles and a thorough discussion on the religiously marginalized (no, we weren’t bemoaning the plight of Scientologists), Scatterbrain came up to the counter with a couple books: one on Victorian lace-weaving, and the other on god-knows-what, each priced at eight dollars a piece.

“Will you come half off these books?” she asked. She had worn-down face that reminded me of Winstons, microwave burritos, and the teeth of aged Quarterhorses.

“Excuse me?”

“Will you come down on these. Half-off,” she said. She blinked.

“Um, I’m only qualified to take 10% off, and that’s only if you ask particularly nicely,” I said, my tongue a little thick from the beer. “And anyway, Happy Dusty is going out of business, like, tomorrow, so we’re in now position to award half-off discounts.”

Scatterbrain slid the books toward me.

“Well, I could get these books much cheaper on-line,” she said, walking toward the door.

I chucked her discarded books onto a nearby cart. Michael sat there with his paper-wrapped 40. I made no attempt to mask my anger.

“Yeah, lady, you do just that,” I said. “Come by tomorrow and see if there’s not a goddamn padlock on the door.”

fucking cooze.

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.