On the side table next to Mr Couch. Diet ginger ale, Kleenex, Hershey’s Kisses, Lovecraft revision collection The Horror in the Museum, and a mug of Lady Grey Tea…in a Borders.com mug.

Before you race off to the closing Borders near you to snap up your own giant Borders mug, hold on a second. To get my Borders.com mug you’re going to have to hop into a time machine to the late 1990s and a lovely winter day when a certain Gwendy came home from a long day of work at Company X to find a package waiting for her on the kitchen counter. A lovely package from Borders.com but did Gwendy order something? This was pre-Blacklight so there was all the monies to spend on books. Inside the mystery package? A gift from Borders.com to their loyal customers, a huge coffee mug and Post-It notes with the Borders.com logo. Score!

Now fast forward over ten years. I’m dragging poor Blacklight to Borders to use up the gift certificate lurking in his wallet and half-horrified/half laughing my butt off/half wondering if the staffers are tempted to do the same thing when Blacklight directs my attention to a search he’s plugged into closest customer service terminal. “BANKRUPTCY”.

The next day at work, the list of doomed stores in Connecticut is on the list. Six stores. Some aren’t a huge surprise. Because every time I went to the Borders in the Dadster’s town it was ghost city. But the Danbury Borders? Really? An image of the Danbury Barnes & Noble staff popping open bottles of champagne and giving high fives comes to mind. Who knew that in the great Danbury bookstore chain war, the tiny superstore without a cafe, music or video section in plaza next to the mall would be the victor?Because, full disclosure I’ve worked for both. And the best Christmas working retail ever? Borders hands down.

But just because a company is awesome to work for doesn’t mean they always make the most sensible business decisions.

Exhibit A: the alliance with Amazon.com for their online presence. As much as I love Amazon.com (check my bank statements!), what companies came out for the better after joining the Amazon empire? Not many.

Exhibit B: the great e-book reader wars. Can you name the Borders chosen e-book? Blacklight says Nabooo. I say “that’s Queen Dingbat’s planet from the Does Not Exist Star Wars movies!” Blacklight tries again. Nook Book? I sigh. And look it up online. Well there is the Kobo, a couple of different Sony and Velocity readers…dang… just gimme a single platform…choosing an e-reader shouldn’t be more difficult than picking the perfect Droid phone!

Exhibit: The Borders Rewards card. Original Recipe Borders rewards card? Heaven! Awesome program to accumulate points to blow at the holidays, tons of coupons. Heck, get a 40% off coupon and forget Amazon.com for that special graphic novel! Then the changes started, switch to the Waldenbooks type of points rewards (what if you don’t have a particular book you want to buy within that 30 day window? GRRR) still great coupons. Still able to resist the Barnes & Noble “do you have our Membership Card?”. Then the pay for play card option appears. no desire to upgrade.

So bye-bye Borders. Thanks for the great memories of Christmas 2001, the discounts, the hours browsing the shelves. I hope all my former coworkers still in Danbury find new jobs. And I hope the six stores closing in CT are the only ones to fall.