A book-lover's Odyssey

People who think that book-lovers are sedentary folk have obviously never tried being one.

The first step is the getting of the books. You stand in line for an hour or so outside a booksale, and when the time comes, you rush in with heart beating rapidly with excitement. If it is sorted by section, you rush about, frantically trying to find the section you desire, and then bob and weave through the aisles until you arrive, breathless, to the spot. You browse the table, grabbing titles that jump out at you, until you realize that you can’t hold anymore, whereupon you squeeze out of the aisle and run as fast as you can to a corner, where you put the selected books in a box and run back for more. After many more trips, your feet ache, your neck aches, and your excitement is dimmed in such aching reality. You sort through your books, remember that you own a few of them already, and rush off to return them (after noticing that the sale is nearly over and you haven’t bought the books yet). You stop halfway and realize that you took the wrong pile, whereupon you return muttering under your breath, and finish the job properly. Then you carry or push your boxes down the long line to the counter, where you count and pay for them, and then must carry them, box by box, the 1/4 of a mile to your vehicle, which distance feels proportionally longer with each trip, so that by the eighth box you have added an extra 9 psychological miles to the marathon of navigating the sale itself. The quiet drive home may or may not atone for this.

Once reaching your home, you must tote the boxes in the house and catalog them into your database. Very likely, your computer is on the second floor while your library is on the first floor, thereby requiring the carrying of boxes up the outside stairs, and then down the inside stairs once the cataloging is complete. After the boxes are downstairs, you must start unloading them onto the shelves, and realize that you must move at least 5 shelves of books to make room. Since this task involves the carrying of hundreds more books, you are wretchedly tired at the end of the task. The satisfaction of a well-ordered library may or may not atone for this.

While organizing your library, you see four score or so books that you want to read, and make several trips up the stairs afterwards with them (your bedroom is never conveniently near to the library). Upon reaching your bedroom, you see that there is no space for the books you have just brought because of the mini-collection of borrowed books from your local library. You quickly go through and remove the books you have read, placing them in a bag to return to their proper home. This involves carrying more bags up the steps and into the library where you load them into the book chute. Failure to resist the allure of books free for the taking of those with library cards, you carry a large pile of new books to borrow to the counter, where the librarian (who knows you well), automatically goes to the holdshelf and herself removes a large pile of books that are reserved for you. You give a dismayed glance at your already-full bags, and ask to borrow a couple more (resolving secretly never again to put more than four tomes of a thousand pages on hold at once). You drag your hoard to the vehicle, and must carry them upstairs again when you arrive at home.

Deciding that it is time to let your duplicate books have a good home, you post them for sale, and get several buyers. This involves putting your for-sale books in a special spot (which is never on the same floor as the computer) and taking the printed orders to meet them. After carrying a couple orders up the stairs, you realize that in the dimness of light (electricity is hard to pay for while booksales exist) you mistook one of the names of the books, and must drag your complaining feet back down to correct the mistake. Once the order is boxed up, you must carry the heavy boxes to the post office to mail them. The small profit may or may not atone for this.

You return home groaning over the past days, and go to the kitchen to heat up your teapot. Before the pleasant whistle sounds, you retrieve a heating pad for your back, and pick a nice book off of your shelf. The tea brews, the pad soothes, the armchair creaks, the pages crinkle (such lovely old pages!), and you sigh with true enjoyment. Finally...there is rest.