Self employed : Books Do Furnish A Room

It is mighty keen to own a used book, compact disc, and comics shop. Partly to be sure because I enjoy books, music and (a very few) comic books. Mostly to be free of the trivial tyrannies of employers, gossip-life of fellow workers, and the lack of rivalries, attempts to boost one's self up the hierarchy. (Was grateful when the UK comedy The Office finally made it out on DVD.) And as I've recounted elsewhere I can tell a fool of a customer to shove his head up his ass.

Not a lovely sight is it? One reviewer in a local weekly that ceased publication last year seemed to resent our tin roof. Keeps the rain out. Our tiny original location had big windows for displaying books and things. Nowadays we're on a side street, at the back of a deep parking lot. Most used book buyers don't give a damn about a pretty exterior (in a building anyway), some even prize a little dinginess as a sign of character. I'd've liked a snazzier looking store myself but don't know that we'd have made any more money. All our funnybook customers care about is their Wednesday fix of the latest four-color thrills.

When in our third year we moved to this location we only had the half on the right. A few years ago Gordon, my business partner, bought the property. Connecting the two halves took time. What you are looking at are two old Army barracks that were trucked in from Butner, a nearby town. One of the buildings is a couple of feet higher than the other. Aside from cutting a giant hole in the wall, we - rather Yance, our invaluable man of all chores - had to build stairs.

Normally I write of the shop elsewhere (and without any real distinction). Giving you a glimpse of it seemed a fit follow-up to the sight of my neighborhood.