Never too old to read.

As a business owner, I'm constantly being asked, "How you doing?" Often, it's with this concerned tone.

So the challenge is to answer that question with just the right measure of truthiness and cageyness.

Of course, like asking someone on the street, "How ya doin'?" the correct answer may be just, "Great!"

But I think a business that always answers "Great!" gets into a bad habit of not acknowledging reality. I mean, you're asking people to take your word that a certain product is worth buying, and at the same time trying to blow smoke up their ass? So -- like I said -- I'm always looking for the proper response.

Anyway, my latest attempt at an answer is, "Considering how much business sucks, we're in great shape!"

Which is totally true. I mean, I'd like to have higher sales, but I purposely built my sales level to a very high margin over my break-even point, while keeping my overhead as low as possible, so I had a lot of margin to give, and I'm not even close to the edge. In fact, in most meaningful ways, we're doing as well as ever.

I'm taking home the same wages, all the bills are paid, no debt, and we are keeping the store stocked.

We are even making improvements.

The only thing we're not doing in building our retirement through increased profits, which might be unrealistic in the Great Recession. Of course, I may be kicking myself in a decade or so for not being able to prepare better -- or perhaps, I'll just be a 70 year old pop culture dealer.

How old can you be selling pop culture? I mean, when I check out the Living sections of newspapers, and especially online sites like Huffington Post, I don't recognize most of the names. Reality stars, obscure T.V. shows, etc. etc. Don't care about red-carpet style, don't care about the inane opinions of actors.

Will comics switch from being kid stuff to old guy stuff? Will only baby boomers still read real books? Will boardgames still exist? Will anyone want 'collectibles' (or keepibles) when their closets are bursting with stuff? Will it be sad to sell X-Files figures to white haired folk?

Oh, well. I'm 57 and feel perfectly comfortable selling this stuff, nor does it seem weird to most people.

Anyway, I have been moving steadily toward books: Never too old to read.