i had this barnes and noble gift card from christmas i hadn’t used yet. i hadn’t used it because i had so many books already in a stack on my bookshelf i still needed to read. but i caught up finally so i went shopping last night.

i punched in a few of the books i wished i had, and one of them was 81% off the cover price. i was offered a book which i was planning to buy someday anyway, in hardcover for no less, for $3.98 instead of a the listed twenty-two or so dollars it technically should have cost me. why the unbelievable bargain? i wondered for several minutes. are they grievously overstocked on this particular item? are they trying to flex their muscles and promote a writer they, as a corporation, want to succeed by fueling his success with their own lost profits? did they raid the publishers’ warehouse, steal boxes and boxes of this book, and plan to fence the cheap copies quickly for some cash before the feds came down on them, hoping to flee to south america and retire on their illicit fortunes? or was it a terrible computer glitch, perpetrated by some elite hacker/terrorist, perhaps even an inside job, meant to bring the towering bn.com giant toppling to its ruin?

oh no! how can i possibly buy this book in good conscience? it could mean the end of my favorite comfortingly wood-panelled mega-chain bookstore! i’d be dooming myself and millions of others to [shudder] borders, for christ’s sake…a vision of a future i don’t want to be a part of. no. i should probably just email them and tell them something is wrong with their website. everything will be okay.

of course, four dollars is a really cheap for a hardcover, and if i order two books i get free shipping even…

well maybe as long as i don’t link the book directly, everything will be fine. there won’t be an epidemic of undercharging, no one will be the wiser, i’ll get my deal, and things will be just fine. yeah, that sounds better actually.

boy i love books.

[now hearing this: someone was playing that coldplay song that’s everywhere earlier today, and now that crazy piano part is looping through my head repeatedly. i don’t think i’ve ever even heard that whole tune all the way through, but all the same i keep going do-do do do-do do do-do, do-do do do-do do do-do…]