My wife and I have anniversary traditions. We go out to eat at a decent restaurant. We recite happy memories equaling the amount of years we’ve been married. We go to a bookstore. At the bookstore, we go our separate ways in order for each of us to pick out a book for the other. She picks out a book for me, inscribes it with a special note, and presents it to me. I do the same for her.

As we drive to the bookstore I am in anticipation. It is unlike any other trip to the bookstore for the calendar year. It is like Christmas all over again, but better in some ways, because I not only get a book, but I get one with a neat little note in it from my wife. Years later I will look at those books with those special notes in them and feel all warm and sentimental and loved and affirmed. And I get to pick out something for her, which is fun and challenging; she’s a picky reader for the most part.

Why do I tell that story? For two reason. First, because it was today, and so it’s still on my mind. And second, because this was a rather difficult time (in a first world sense) at the B&N. And the difficulty made me think of a favorite quote I’ve never shared on the blog.

The store was packed. It was hard to look at anything without getting bumped into or being made to feel uncomfortable by someone standing or sitting nearby. I had a guy actually sigh at me because I knelt down in front of his chair, which was in the middle of an aisle, to look at a bookshelf that he was semi-blocking.

I knew what book I wanted to get for my wife. That was half the battle. I look it up on their computer and find the location. That’s two-thirds of the battle. I go to the shelf where it is located and find that two women are hugging right in front of the spot where the book is. But that’s not all. One of the women is nearly uncontrollably (she’s maybe semi-controlled) bawling as she buries her head in the other woman’s shoulder. What to do…

I don’t want to intrude. I don’t want to be nosy. It’s slightly, okay more than slightly, awkward. So I just wait. And wait. And wait. (At a safe distance of course). I walk laps around the store as I try to avoid my wife, whom I am not supposed to see because it would ruin the surprise if she’s holding the book she has picked out for me. And I walk more laps. About 30 minutes worth. They’re not budging from that one spot, and I don’t want to interfere with whatever type of therapy session is taking place. I don’t want to look at books, because then I would just end up spending more money than I planned. So I walk on. I can always use a little cardio.

I am not really frustrated, but I am growing impatient. I am thinking of Chesterton’s line, ‘An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered and an inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.’ It helps.

Alas, I finally get the book. On the way home, my wife and I are discussing the pros and cons of shopping in bookstores. I think of an old quote I had underlined in a book by Jerry Seinfeld:

[A bookstore is] a ‘smarter than you’ store. And that’s why people are intimidated – because to walk into a bookstore, you have to admit there’s something you don’t know.

And the worst part is you don’t even know where it is. You go in the bookstore and you have to ask people, ‘Where is this? Where is that? Not only do I lack knowledge, I don’t even know where to get it.’ So just to walk into a bookstore you’re admitting to the world, ‘I’m not too bright.’

-Jerry Seinfeld, SeinLanguage, p. 3

Bookstores can be frustrating. Bookstores can be magical. But above all, bookstores should make us humble. (I am not sure how Amazon figures into this).

So, next time you walk into a bookstore, try to think of it as an act of humility.