3 responses to ““Where’d You Go, Customer X?””

  1. Brad Craft

    A Farewell

    Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
    Thy tribute wave deliver:
    No more by thee my steps shall be,
    For ever and for ever.

    Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
    A rivulet then a river:
    Nowhere by thee my steps shall be
    For ever and for ever.

    But here will sigh thine alder tree
    And here thine aspen shiver;
    And here by thee will hum the bee,
    For ever and for ever.

    A thousand suns will stream on thee,
    A thousand moons will quiver;
    But not by thee my steps shall be,
    For ever and for ever.

    — Alfred Lord Tennyson

  2. James

    Not to turn this into a private conversation among columnists, but this is big-league stuff you’re throwing, Christine. You too, Brad.

  3. Amanda MacNaughton

    You know, this happens to me too. And I think I’ve also been that customer who stopped coming in to my customary spot. I know I have been, especially with restaurants and coffee shops. For me, the reason is usually financial. I ran out of discretionary income, or decided I had better stop getting fancy coffee drinks or other discretionary spending items. I wonder if this is sometimes why our book customers stop visiting us. Besides my own bookstore, I love to go to other indie bookstores, but recently I’ve had to stop buying books anywhere but my own, because my finances changed and I need to get that bookseller discount. I miss going to the other area bookstores and talking with the booksellers. In fact, recently I was wistfully thinking of the little Catholic bookshop in the alley in a nearby town, where I love to go, talk to the elderly couple who runs it, browse, and leave with a bunch of Henri Nouwen books. I just might treat myself to a trip there and a book or two next time I get paid for a piece of writing.

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