"Bookstore"

   Gather round children and I'll tell you a story of a girl who went into Chapters/ Indigo with no intention to buy a book. The girl had a 25$ gift-card but had no clear intention of spending it that day. UNTIL she went to the in-store Starbucks and was informed that she could use her gift-card towards the price of a tall no-water chai latte. Upon hearing this fabulous news, the girl exclaimed "fuck books!" a little too loud and proceeded to order.
   Twist: the girl was me.
   Actually though, it was me. Hard to believe, I know. In that instance I effectively and proactively contributed to the increasingly less slow demise of the publishing/ print industry. I was more a part of the problem in that moment than that time I went to McDonald's on Christmas eve.
   Me, as an aspiring writer, opting to spend a fifth of my gift-card on a coffee rather than a book that someone who I potentially idolize wrote is the same as if I had laid down in front of an eighteen wheeler that reads "THE MAN" on the side and let it roll over and kill me. That is what I may as well have done. Totally without a fight, too. It's like in Looper *spoiler alert*. I was Joseph Gordon- Levitt killing my future self, Bruce Willis. But not in a noble, hot-guy way. In a totally superficial, uneducated knave kind of way.
  The next time I find myself in Chapters/ Indigo I have resolved to purchase the first book I see- being careful to check for classic book qualities like a cover, and pages with words, to ensure that I am not in fact buying a candle or a calendar with puppies on it. I will do this willful and impulsive purchase simply to ensure that I am buying a book in a "bookstore". Rather than what I might be, sadly, more inclined towards: to buy a coffee in a "bookstore".