“Here you are,” I’ll say to a sixteen-year-old. And for that they deserve a token of my gratitude. Real fun is right at their fingertips, but instead of taking bong hits in a stolen car, or getting pregnant in a neighbor’s toolshed, they’ve come to a bookstore to hear a middle-aged man read out loud. But they provide only so many, and with a good-sized crowd you’re empty-handed before you know it.Īdults get something for special occasions, but the bulk of my presents go to teen-agers, who qualify by virtue of their very existence. Say it’s someone’s birthday or anniversary: I always offer the shampoos and conditioners taken from my hotels. There the packets might cost two dollars each, but here the entire display-maybe a hundred and fifty doses-went for just twelve bucks.Īt home, I’d buy a bottle of Bufferin or ibuprofen and leave it at that, but when I’m on tour it’s packets I need-not for myself but to give as gifts to the people who’ve come to see me. It looked like something you’d see behind the counter at a gas station. Pills were paired into single-serving envelopes, then stapled in rows to a bright sheet of poster board. At Costco, though, I’d found displays of pain relievers: Anacin, Bayer, Tylenol. Their merciless lighting, their stench of rubber and cheap molded plastic-it’s not the way I normally like to shop. Living in cities, it’s easy to avoid the big-box superstores. “Anyone game for a quick ride to Costco?” he asked, and before he could even find his keys I was panting, doglike, beside the front door. I was spending the weekend with my sister Lisa, gearing up for six weeks of travel, when her husband, Bob, expressed a need for light bulbs. The first one I went to was in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The landscape, though, has changed since then, and it’s telling that on this latest tour I started and finished at a Costco. The ones I’d undertaken in the past began in one independent or chain store, and ended, a month or so later, in another. If anything should be bracketed by matching bookends, I suppose it’s an author tour.
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