Tricia Mingerink

Last Saturday, I realized I might just have a problem. I’m a wee bit too addicted to collecting books.

Every year, my small town holds a festival to celebrate simply being in existence (because small towns still hold celebrations like that). There are fireworks, a parade, half the businesses run sales, the other half do some type of special dinner or hot dog fry or something. It’s pretty crazy. As part of the celebration, my local library holds a book sale.

On Saturday, I was just sitting down to edit when I remembered that the book sale started at 9. It was now 9:37. The parade (which closes down the street in front of the library) started at 10:00. I live 12 minutes away.

It was going to be close. I grabbed my purse, dashed out the door with a quick explanation to my mom where I was going, and hurried into my car.

I didn’t make it. I arrived at the final turn as the local police closed the road. I was stuck half a mile away from the library.

So I did what any level-headed, book-addicted girl would do when a parade stands between them and books. I parked and walked the half mile to the library. Did I mention that it was 85 degrees and humid out?

I fast-walked to the library (after all, the longer I took, the more picked over the books would be) and managed to outpace all the candy-crazed kids eager for the parade to start.

Finally, hot, sweaty, and red-faced, I stumbled into the air-conditioned library. And realized that for the first year ever, they’d decided to run the library sale Friday and Saturday. The boxes of books were already half empty and picked over!

I found a couple of YA books, but none my favorites, and a few research books. All told, I found 8 gems buried in the boxes of books.

After paying, I stepped back outside. The beginning of the parade was just reaching the road in front of the library. I could either wait the 45 minutes and watch the rest of the parade or hike back to my car and leave right then.

I decided to leave. I was supposed to be editing, and I’d have to make the walk either way. Might as well do it before the rest of the crowd and miss all the crazy traffic.

By the time I reached my car, the bags of books had cut trenches into my fingers and ached into my shoulders. Blisters had formed both between my toes where my flip flops had rubbed and on the bottom of one of my feet where the plastic chafed.

I was thankful the sale had been so picked over. My usual forty pounds of books would’ve been way too much to carry half a mile back to my car. Eight books were heavy enough.

Probably the most amazing thing about the whole day, was that I managed to fit the books on my bookshelves when I got home. 😉

Have you ever been to a library book sale?