Since I was already up in the northeast after dropping off Katelyn, I had the opportunity to visit one of my closest friends (Sarah) Cramer (from rugby at Harvard) who I hadn’t seen since November 2008. Rather than go for a traditional visit, I decided to spice things up and surprise her in her hometown of Granville, NY (it’s probably even smaller than Bucktown).

Cramer just opened her own used book store, but she wasn’t open the day I planned on arriving, so I had to get creative in order to execute my surprise. I decided to lure her to her store posed as someone interested in making a book donation with a gmail address I made up just for the surprise and this message:

Hello,

I found this e-mail address on your site and I wanted to get in touch
with you about making a donation to your store. I’ve been helping my
cousin move out of the area and we’ve needed to get rid of a lot of
her things. She read about your store in the Sentinel and wanted to
see if it’d be possible to drop off some of her books at your store
tomorrow before we leave. I know you don’t have any hours Thursday,
but if I could meet you at 11am that would be perfect.

Let me know, I’ll be checking my e-mail throughout the day.
Thanks!
Rachel

Within hours, Cramer had responded to my fake request:

Hi Rachel,

Any books your cousin has would be wonderful.  The reason I don’t have store hours on Thursdays is that I work as a substitute teacher at the schools.  Though I am not currently scheduled to work tomorrow, they sometimes call me early in the morning they want me to work.  If I’m not working, I can meet you at the store at 11 tomorrow.  If I am working, I will try and get someone else to meet you at the same time.  Do you know where the store is located?

Best,
Sarah

I was a little nervous that Cramer might get called in to work that day, but I had to roll with it. So I sealed the deal and got up the next morning to drive to Granville, feeling pretty good that Cramer seemed to have fallen for my trick.

Once I got close to my destination, I decided to capture the entry to the little gem of Granville on my way to finding her bookstore.

I didn’t realize then that I needed to start paying attention sooner…

I wasn’t expecting to have to so many problems navigating Granville’s Main Street strip (that’s about .25 miles long…)

Shortly after I took that last video, I decided I had to try finding it on foot. I parked my car at the end of the strip and started walking, still rather confused. My mom called and I was explaining my plight to her, only to look across the street and see what I began to recognize as the store front that I had seen in pictures before. Once I looked through the glass, I could see Cramer standing in the window laughing and shaking her head at me as I hung up with my mom and dashed into her store. I didn’t have my camera rolling because I was kind of caught of guard trying to execute my own surprise, but she was still very happy to see me.

On a side note, I showed these videos to Cramer’s mom later that evening, only to have her point out in 3 of the videos where the bookstore was in the background… Maybe I should have done a little more research before I drove! Despite everything, I still consider the surprise a success and had a wonderful visit with the Cramer clan!