My Blog! My Blog!

This week, I stopped into a Borders bookstore on the way back from a court conference, thinking to buy a book and have a pleasant light lunch before I headed back to my office.

Book in hand, I approached the clerk at the cafe counter, where we had the following dialogue:

ME: Hi. [eyeing the substantial array of dessert-like substances and noting the lack of anything with protein] Do you sell any sandwiches?

HIM: Well, we usually do, but we don't have any today.

ME: Oh. Well, [lifting book in the direction of the cash register] can I pay for this here?

HIM: No, sorry, you have to take that downstairs [to the main bank of registers].

Barnes & Noble, of course, has a nice variety of sandwiches on offer, and its cafe clerks not only accept payment for books and other merchandise at their register, they will offer to do so and look up whether the purchaser has a Barnes & Noble account so the person can get the 10% discount.

No wonder Borders continues to lag behind B&N, despite often having a wider and more interesting selection of books.