It was the summer of 1995 and I took English 252: Mystery & Detective Fiction as a three credit college course. We read books like Sherlock Holmes and Raymond Chandler. Anyhow, one of the assignments was to either visit Mystery One Bookstore …. OR do something else. I can’t remember why, but I did the something else. HOWEVER, I did vow that someday I would visit Mystery One Bookstore.

Well one thing led to another and pretty soon it had been 16 years and I had still not been to the Mystery One Bookstore.

It’s not for lack of trying. The hours are very -ish, meaning they are open from then until then-ish. And it seems that we were always driving by during the non-open hours.

One year I even put it on my bucket list of things to do … and well, then I did not.

Anyhow. On Friday I did!

The kid and I were on our way to Whole Foods and I pulled the car over, parked it, crossed my finger and look at that! THE SIGN WAS LIT!

I made her take my picture.

And then another one … smoking gun style.

Then she suggested a normal picture.

Okay, that’s enough of the pictures, give me my camera back….

And then we found this:

After 16 years let’s just say that thank goodness Bert’s was right next door.

Whew! That was close!

The kid and I browsed a bit and we each came home with a book, he even gave her a freebie. As soon as I’m finished reading The Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards, I’m jumping right into Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich (which by the way MY copy is encased in one of those clear dust jacket book covers, you know, hardcover first edition and all that).

Mission accomplished.