Ten Things That Have Remained True for Twenty-Five Years

The last bulletin of the present cycle · Ranked by steadfastness

Few things hold for a quarter of a century without revision. The Collection has revised, in its time, the volume of the milk and the flavour of the Altoids (see the footnotes to The Incident), and notes these as the exceptions that prove the durability of the rest. Ten facts, ranked by steadfastness, are set down below.

No. 1 · The Standing Entry That on the 9th of November, 2001, at the Cumberland Farms on N. Main Street in Concord, New Hampshire, a man cut a line of one and said nothing. (See the record.) Unrevised for twenty-five years, save for two particulars of detail and none of substance. The central fact has not moved an inch. It will not. It is the one fixed point around which every page and every bulletin of this Collection has been arranged.
That the Cumberland Farms on N. Main Street is still there.It has outlasted the outrage and intends to outlast the museum.
That the milk was delicious.Attested by the only witness qualified to attest it.
That "excuse me" would have sufficed.It would have. It still would. The offer technically stands.
That the curator has not returned.Not from fear. From principle, and a long memory.
That the postdated check's fate remains, by choice, unknown.Some facts are kept true by being kept unexamined.
That the only door still opens outward onto the same street.A departure remains available to anyone, including, belatedly, an apology.
That the grievance is held, and held well.Maintained to archival standard, in a climate-controlled register.
That no apology has been received as of this writing.The page will be updated if this changes. Most of it will stay the same.
That you are visitor № 1 to this page, and that this has been true of every visitor.The most reliable fact the Collection maintains. It has never once been wrong.

This concludes the present cycle of bulletins. The Collection will determine what comes next with the deliberation the subject demands. The record, in the meantime, remains — open, unstaffed, and unforgetting.