Thursday was pathetic. I have been pondering Thursday for a couple of days here, and no. I can’t find anything good about it. It was actually humiliating on several levels if I think about it long enough, and so I refuse to consider it any further. I was even going to say that the fact that the planet wasn’t obliterated by one or more military actions escalating out of control was the besst thing, but Thursday was so bad (HOW BAD WAS IT?) that had I been obliterated by a precision meteor strike that left a pony-shaped crater I might have called that a favorable outcome.

Friday was better. You might think, well, yeah, after a Thursday like that anything would be an improvement, but I know better. Neverevereverever say, “Well, it can’t get any worse.” Because the sad truth is, the capacity for things to get worse is infinite. But if you think it through, you’re forced to acknowledge that, conversely, the capacity for things to get better is also infinite.

Friday’s besst…humiliation was bewilderingly replaced with praise, again on all levels. Lovely sushi dinner with Dad, Interrupted, followed by our traditional Date Night Activity: coffee, dessert, and book browsing at the local Barnes & Noble. As we approached the store, I noticed that the puzzle section in the front window was strangely empty. And then I saw why: the sign advising that, after 17 years, the store was closing next Saturday.

If life came with a real soundtrack, at that moment we would have had a riff of “Dun Dun Dunnnnn.” This was really upsetting. I remember jumping up and down with joy when that store opened. How many times has that store saved Christmas or birthday shopping? I bought the eldest Daughter, Interrupted’s SAT practice books in there. One Easter Saturday I wound up having an argument with Dad, Interrupted and I stomped out of the house in a snit and where did I turn for solace? Books. Local books.

We wandered the store, trying to avert our eyes from the wide-open spaces where the corpses of displays were being stashed and trying to avert our minds’ eyes from the ghosts of our memories.

Guilt consumed me: I helped kill that store. I cheated on it extensively with Amazon Prime and a Kindle app, pimped by the UPS man. (And B&N wasn’t the first bookstore I loved and then callously discarded. No: Waldenbooks and B Dalton are on my conscience, too.)

True, B&N didn’t do a lot to keep me from straying: their online presence was not well-designed, and their inability/lack of desire to assist me with a membership snafu made me throw up my hands and walk away.

But I didn’t want them to die! I wanted them to find love with someone else and still be there if I needed a late night hook up with a trashy discounted remainder!

The pain from that one followed me into the chaos of Saturday, which tossed me a B&N bone: I didn’t kill that store. It was the landlord, in the strip mall, with an unrenewed lease. Seems they ‘wanted to go in a different direction.’ Which just makes me curious.

The rest of the day was a blur of construction clean up and one glorious besst: my kitchen is now complete. The pantry is the stuff of dreams: I now have Fifty Shades of Storage.

I cannot wait for the movie.

What is the Besst project? 

And why is it called Besst?

© E. Stocking Evans 2014