Let me guess: your favourite genre is mystery.*

Phone rings.

"Hello, this is [Bookshop] Books."

"I want to order a book from you."

I pause, assuming he will follow up the statement with some kind of question.
He doesn't.

"Okay, do you want to order a book you saw us list online, you want to order a book you saw in our store the other day, or you were looking to do a Special Order?"

"Special order."

"I'm sorry, sir, we're not doing Special Orders any more because we are closing in two weeks."

"You guys are closing?!"

I sigh inwardly, because it's been in all the local press and since we made the announcement at the beginning of the year, any regular customer would certainly have heard about it in person.

"Yes, sir, we will be closed by next month."

"You're going out of business?!!"

"Yes."

"Oh, okay.  I guess I'll call your downtown location."

"Our downtown location closed ten years ago."

"You guys are closing your downtown location?!!"

"No, it closed ten years ago.  There's nothing for us to close there any more."

"No, I KNOW there is a [Completely Unrelated Bookshop] downtown.  That is NOT closed."

"That is correct, sir.  There IS a [Completely Unrelated Bookshop] downtown, but since you called [Bookshop] Books I can't help you do a Special Order from them."

"... Oh.

Well, I'm so sad to hear that [Bookshop] Books is closing.  I love your store."


Ah, yes.  So many customers we've never seen before are so sad that we're closing.  Alas, their one visit to our old location ten years ago is not quite enough to keep us going a decade later.  It's unfortunate that we spend so much time condoling these people, whose support for independent bookshops extends only to a conceptual support never manifesting in a lucrative one unless the only copies they can find on Amazon cost more than they are willing to pay and they call us up hoping to find an underpriced one, as it tires us and leaves us with less genuine emotion to share with the many wonderful regular customers from around the neighbourhood that come in.

*The title of this post refers to a curious phenomenon in which aficionados of the mystery genre are completely oblivious to the world around them, unable to detect even such subtle clues as the large pendant "MYSTERIES" sign with the silhouette of Sherlock Holmes on it that hangs above our mystery section.