Twenty Years at Booknotes

It was twenty years ago today, a Saturday, that my store, Booknotes, opened.  Of course, that makes today the store's anniversary.  This is the china anniversary.  We had actually started cleaning out and remodeling of the unit back in July of 2020.  It just took a few months for everything to be fixed.  The fixtures and books starting coming in September.  I had to sit down and open dozens of books and make sure that the inventory was correct.  At least one book was missing, but it has been so long I can't really be sure of anything else.  That first day, we only had a few people come in.  Our first customer was an associate of my mother's, either someone who worked for her dentist or hairstylist.  One of the books she bought was a food lover's companion.  That maybe the actual title, but I can't be sure, so I won't put it in italics.  She wound up paying for the books with a check.  That means we never had a first dollar as a good luck charm.  That might be one of the reasons why we were never a huge success.  In these twenty years, Booknotes has had many ups and downs.  We have had well over a dozen events.  Some were great, but a few had hardly anyone.  The store got flooded from pipes twice.  It almost got flooded from a mudslide.  There were multiple closures due to snow storms, not to mention the reason two month forced lockdown due to a pandemic.  Almost every other business that was at our shopping center has moved, closed, or both.  Some are still here, but are under new management.  I haven't even looked at some of the newest businesses yet.  There is even a church across the parking lot.  This lot is actually one of the main reasons why we chose this location.  There is usually plenty of parking, although we only needed all of the space just once.  To be honest, there aren't many things I still like about being in business.  I have always loved knowing about what books will be coming out, months or more in advance, even if there is only one distributor that we can still deal with.  I love to finally get the chance to read some books that I had been waiting for.  It is only because of the store that I read The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series.  I have read so many books, and kept some of them entirely for me.  I love coming up with ways to decorate the store, making logos and filming them, coming up with the themed puzzles behind displays, drawing up the "Upcoming Releases" board each month, and even designing the store's website and social media pages.  Still don't have those last two exactly as they should be.  Lately, that is all I do.  Hardly anyone is coming in any more.  Most of our business has been on special orders.  We have never truly figured out which books we should always have in stock.  Sometimes we work it out, but we never seem to have enough money to get all of the special orders and new books to reorder much, especially now with direct withdrawal.  We have been through four cash registers, three microwave ovens,  five calculators, but barely three-fourths of the thousands of staples in the box we got at opening.  We still have dozens of the books from those original shipments, too.  Some are out-of-date, and dated, but many are still perfectly enjoyable and useful.  I don't know how much longer I will be here at the store.  Its time is definitely numbered.  I had expected to be in school and out of the area by this fall, but I'm not.  If I could just have some way to keep doing this, while making money, then the picture wouldn't be so dim.  Here's hoping for at least a few more weeks.