Saturday, August 28, 2010

Life is like a paper bag...

I went to our local library sale today. It was awesome!

The Library is one of the oldest in the area, and it is beautiful- everything an old library should be. It has high windows and tall stacks and wooden floors and when you walk in you smell...books. Ummm!

I've been visiting this library since I was old enough to read and maybe even before.

I remember walking in and thinking " I could read all of these books!"


And I set out to do just that.


I've gotten a little more specific in my reading list- but I will still give almost any book a try.


BUT- I digress...


I went to the Library Sale today and for $5.00 you could fill a paper bag- and they provided the bag!


Now when you first open that paper bag, and look inside you see endless possibilities....


It's big and square.


You run to the first rows of books and quickly scan the titles.


Your fingers fly over the spines picking, choosing, rejecting, reconsidering, until you put the first book in the bag. It rattles around in there all alone.


WOW! There is still loads of room!


You rush to the next stack, don't want to miss anything... pick...choose... put in the bag.


Still lots of room- this is great! You are really going to get your moneys worth today!


You go to the mysteries, then fiction ( popular) then fiction (thrillers). Sci-Fi.


Wait here are the biographies, the animal section and the self help!


Pick-Choose- Select- I can squeeze some on the sides....


Oh my - the Childrens sections! Pooh, E.B.White, Little Engine books, alphabet books, counting books and story books...


Glad they are slim, they will fit on this side...


HISTORY! MY FAVORITE! ( Thank goodness this section is a little picked over- here's a big one on California for my California collection!)


The bag is so heavy! I have to drag it and straddle it while I look through the next shelves.

Lord help me- the Classics! A High Wind in Jamica, Steinbeck, Hemingway,Shakespear, D.H Lawrence... is there no end?


And I am nearly full, my bag weights fifty pounds.

I round a corner and find...


NON FICTION! Yikes.


Pick.... Choose... into the bag. It is nearly full. Where did all that lovely room go? I don't want to get a second bag! I only want to carry one!


I finally make my way to the cashier. She takes my $5.00 and urges me to go around again.


I can't!


I lug the bag into my arms, and as I am ascending into the light of day the kindly man at the gate, smiles and pats my arm.

" That bag isn't full young lady!" he says. He gathers up three or four more paperbacks into his hand and piles them on the top of the bag.

" There you go. Happy reading!"