Listen up, consumer monkeys, 'cause it's time for yet another Apple retail store update. The company recently revised its official retail page to indicate that its Bellevue Square and Walt Whitman stores are now slated to admit marauding hordes of shoppers starting this coming Saturday, May 10th. The Apple Store Bellevue Square is notable for being Apple's first location in the Pacific Northwest, and therefore represents the company's long-overdue retail incursion into hostile Microsoft territory. The Apple Store Walt Whitman, on the other hand, is affectionately known among the retail junkie set as "iYAWP" and "Yet Another Store in New York State."

By our count, come this Saturday, Apple's store tally will tick up from 53 to 55, thus edging the company ever closer to its ultimate goal of total global domination (or, depending on whom you believe, one free 6-inch sandwich of equal or lesser value at Subway). But MacObserver notes a frightening threat to the dream: Apple's Senior Veep of Retail Ron Johnson is officially The Man when it comes to pretty much all aspects of the stores, and after talking to him last week, Merrill Lynch reported that he "would not be averse to closing some stores if those stores were not going to be able to cover their variable costs."

What Ron seems to be implying is that if certain locations continue to lose money and don't look like they'll stop losing money anytime soon, then Apple might consider shutting them down. Which is, of course, totally unacceptable. When Apple first announced its intention to open its own chain of retail stores, wasn't there an implicit contract between the company and the Mac faithful that each store would remain open forever and ever and ever? Were we being somehow unreasonable when we assumed that each and every location would continue standing come hell or high water, outlasting not only its competition, but also civilization itself? Is it somehow unwarranted that we envisaged these stores as ageless as two vast and trunkless legs of stone in the desert? "I am the Apple Store, king of retail-- look on my Macs, ye mighty, and despair!"

Whatever. If the economy doesn't pick up soon, apparently we just might have to deal with the fact that Apple's store count will start ticking downward instead of upward, but we'll leap screaming from that bridge when we come to it. What we want to know is, if select Apple retail stores really do start shutting down, will the company bookend the experience with gala Grand Closing celebrations? We're imagining throngs of Mac fans lined up inside to get out.