Proceed To Checkout

We’d shop, whether it was Mom and I, or currently alone and/or with whatever friend is with me. Look through the stores, see what’s there, what we discover as we walk through the shops, the surprises of finding items we thought were not made. Laden down, we head for the nearest check-out site and lay it out.

It’s been that way since I was old enough to walk. Before then, I don’t remember a thing. But I grew up wandering around stores, carefully noting the stock and finding this or that gadget, some other foodstuff. You just can’t beat wandering, as long as you keep a little balance in your head and don’t grab at anything.

Now, “Proceed To Checkout” has a new meaning. You don’t walk to it, you click on it. I look up an item on an Internet site (Amazon being my favorite), gather up what’s on my list, then without wandering around any further in the stacks, I proceed to checkout. Click, click, click. Very efficient. Not at all like Barnes & Noble’s store at the mall.

Not nearly as much fun, either. I can spend an hour or two up there just walking around, seeing what’s out, what books might be in my field of interest (and even not in it, but still worth reading). Normally, I leave the store with three books and often not those I would have chosen beforehand. It pays to wander.

Amazon may be wonderfully efficient, but you can’t stroll through the stacks. The magic of a bookstore is gone. Proceed to checkout. Click.