masterminds

Well, today was one of the biggest dates in my annual calendar, the Friends of the Seattle Public Library Book Sale. This sale is a big deal, and since I buy a lot of books, and still consider it a big deal...well, I hope that tells you something. The sale is held is a former aircraft hangar and according to library sources, there are 200,000 items for sale. This includes books, CDs, movies, to name a few. It is held in April and September. Books are either 50 or 75 cents, with hardbacks going for a dollar and a section of "better books" that might be a few bucks. Movies are a dollar. I always go an hour before it starts to get in line, like a crazy person.

In years past, there have been times when I have bought 50+ books. Today my haul was a little small, which is to say it probably was the size of a regular person's. I mean, I probably even bought more my first year, when I did not have a car and did not know what I was getting myself into, and had to take the bus with all the books I bought about to come out of a bursting plastic bag. This year I only got 17 books and 5 movies.

Why was the take so small this year? Well, of course, when you've already been to this sale a few times, it's possible you've already bought all the books you're ever going to need. Also, since I am still recovering from a sprained knee, I wasn't at the top physical form required to really do this sale. There are books on top of table, stacked under the table, (which requires a lot of up-and-down) there are people to push out of the way, there are narrow aisles...it all needs physical endurance and very strong muscles and I am not back to 100% yet.

But I was certainly well enough to go. Here is a list of people who I wish were not well enough to go:
--Babies and small children: If you know me, you know I am all about instilling a love of reading in children from the moment they are conceived. But I do not need to crawl over children in the U.S. History section, nor do I want to worry about dropping a box of books on a newborn baby. There were at least two babies that could not have been more than a week old. People of Seattle, please don't bring your babies to book sales. It is not a place for the defenseless.

--People who were more infirm than me: If I didn't feel as good as I did, I might not have gone, because people push you around at this event in an effort to get to cheap books, and I'm well aware that my leg really shouldn't be pushed, but no one else is and no one else cares, frankly. Which is why I don't have a lot of patience for the woman hopping around with her foot in a cast, or the people who block aisles with walkers and wheelchairs. Please do not find me insensitive. But please find me to be realistic.

--Booksellers: Booksellers ruin it for the rest of us. Obviously it's great that the owner of a small independent bookstore can come in and replenish their stock for a few hundred bucks, then mark it up to sell back to all of us. Just fantastic. But they get meaner and meaner every year, blocking out entire aisles, and then taking entire boxes of books without even looking inside them. Other buyers roam the aisles, scanning every single book with a scanner that will beep and go, "Buy it!" when they scan a book they need. It just ruins the spirit of the book sale.

And other mean and selfish people, I wish they'd just get sick on the day of the sale and stay home, but they're so mean and selfish that they'd just come anyway and get us all sick. It's not really an event that makes me think very well of humanity, because when you put them in a situation where it's essentially a contest to find bargains, then things will get nasty. I just wish we could all be nice, polite readers, and help each other out. More like the cute fellow who moved out of the way so I could get a better look at the classical literature section.