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After an unexpectedly disappointing fourth quarter in 2006, the Brown Bookstore publicly admitted that the sales of its highly touted Physics Department sweatshirt lagged considerably behind early expectations. After the pervasive advertising campaign that accompanied the release of sweatshirt, the lack of a market came as a surprise to many.
Edwin Crick, owner of the Brown Bookstore, expressed shock at his drastically lower-than-expected sales figures. The physics-themed sweatshirt was evidently a pet project of Crick's, and he made many sacrifices, both personal and professional, to make it a reality.
According to neighbors, the rent paid by the gypsies who now live in and around Crick's Pawtucket home went into the production of and advertisements for the physics sweatshirt.
The business strategy undertaken by Mr. Crick has been called "gung-ho" by industry experts ever since the Brown Bookstore stopped carrying many of its more popular items, such as non-physics apparel, knitting-kits-in-cups, mugs, shot glasses, and books, in order to make room for the physics sweatshirts.
In anger at her husband's failure, Mr. Crick's wife, Miriam Crick, has begun evicting gypsies from her property and has packed what remains of her husband's belongings after a garage sale to raise money for the physics sweatshirts in cardboard boxes, eager to be rid of him.
When asked about his future plans for the Bookstore, Crick looked at the floor for a moment, despondent, and then answered, "I had a lot riding on the success of those sweatshirts… oh God… Miriam, forgive me."
After vomiting and losing consciousness roughly simultaneously, Crick showed this reporter the textbook return area which he has converted, after he stopped selling textbooks and, consequently, also ended their return, into what he called, in what might have passed for an enthusiastic voice if not for its mid-sentence, pubescent-sounding crack, his "bachelor pad."
From what was intelligible from the violent sobbing that ensued, it seems that Crick is going to attempt to transform his store into something more profitable. His main ideas seem to be either a wholesale jeweler or a farmer's market. Either way, he is looking for novel ways to use his remaining stock of 150,000 Physics Department sweatshirts in his future business enterprises.
