Powell's

Truth be told, Portland is a pretty lame town. I don’t mean this in a bad way- I consider myself a pretty lame person. Portland’s lameness can be immediately demonstrated by asking any native Portlander what to do there. Eight out of ten times, the first thing out of their mouth will be “Have you been to Powell’s?”

Powell’s is a big book store. Actually, it’s a Portland chain, and there are a ton of them strewn all over town. I almost dare not mention that Powell’s originated in Chicago, lest some Portlander reads that fact and kills himself over the lie he’s been living. But THE Powell’s is on Burnside. Actually, the entrance is on Couch, which is stupidly pronounced Cooch. There’s nowhere to park near the store. They have a parking garage but it is always full.

I have no idea why anybody thinks Powell’s is a good tourist destination. Powell’s specializes in selling new and used easy-to-find still-in-print books. It is not like one of those used book stores on Telegraph in Berkeley, where you can spend hours happily stumbling across intriguing out-of-print titles you’d never heard of but wish you had time to read. Instead, you spend hours miserably stumbling over people trying to find the exit. Perhaps the fascinating lure of the store is that it was apparently designed by Daedalus, the architect most famous for creating the labyrinth that held the Minotaur in Greek mythology. Also, if you’re one of those people who likes going to carnivals but doesn’t ride the rides, Powell’s might be right up your alley.

In order to find a book, first you have to find a computer. In order to find a computer, you must randomly squeeze through narrow aisles past hundreds of people intentionally pretending to not notice they are in your way until you come across a line of people. Make sure it’s not the line for selling used books, the checkout counter or coffee shop. And not the long line: that is the line for the bathroom.

Before I continue, let me just pause to point out one fact about Powell’s. It contains 68,000 square feet of floor space and ONE BATHROOM. I am not kidding.

Okay, so you must stand in line for several minutes until a computer becomes available. Incidentally, computers are usually found near “information” booths, which are either empty or contain some cocky frat jock with a computer of his own in which he does the exact same thing you would do if you could just use the damn computer yourself, only slower and including superfluous questions about the book you are looking for. So just get to an empty computer, type in the book or subject you want. If you’re lucky, you won’t get a “Please Try Again” request or 255 listings to sift through but a correct title with a color and number under it. Write these down: you will not be able to remember them by the time you find what they correlate with in the store.

Every room is inexplicably assigned a color. I have no idea what these colors mean or how they relate to anything. I only know that to find a colored room, you must once again randomly squeeze through aisles, hoping to come across doorways and stairs, until you find the color you are looking for. Once you’re in the correct colored room, you must find the correct aisle number. Every aisle is numbered, but these numbers are not sequentially ordered or always easy to see. If you decide you want to purchase a book, then you’ll have to find the line to the checkout counter and be herded through it like bovine. Good luck!

An important word of caution: NEVER go into Powell’s with anybody you ever want to see again if you do not both have your cell phones on you. Never mind the fact that the person next to you is using their cell phone to loudly read every title to whoever’s on the other end. If you want to prevent spending the rest of your life in jail for what any fair court would deem “justifiable homicide,” leave all weapons at home.