Bookstore
Yesterday some friends of mine and I were talking about the benefits of going to a locally owned business over a “big box” store that is owned by stockholders and run by a CEO. I’m all in favor of going to smaller, local businesses for my purchases in order to support them. If I have the option of going to a small business over a large corporation, I’ll pick the small business. This isn’t always an option, though.
Anyway, this conversation must have invaded my dreams because I spent most of the night dreaming that I was in a role-playing shop. It was in my hometown, and run by one of the rudest owners that I’ve ever met. However, I still shopped there when I lived back in Texas because it was pretty much the only place to get what I wanted to buy.
In my dream, the owner had taken these really large role-playing books (over an inch thick each), stripped them apart, photocopied them, and rebound them. He was selling the original books for normal price, and he was selling his copies for $1 less than the publishers’ copies. I guess he was trying to turn an extra buck. That’s very much the attitude of this guy.
I remember getting very upset at him for piracy of the publishers’, authors’, and game desiners’ works. I wanted to refuse to buy anything from him, but he was my only option in the dream. I wanted to buy this new role-playing game that had an orange cover, and all of its supplements (which also had orange covers.) The problem was that I could not afford any of them. I remember dejectedly looking through the books and marveling at how wonderful they were.
I spent most of the night reading through these books and lamenting over the fact that I could not take them home. This is pretty normal for me when I lived back in Texas. I had a hard time staying at jobs, and, consequently, I had very little money for luxury items. I’m glad those days are behind me (both the job jumping and the shortage of money.)
