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Just the other day I got a text message from a stranger: free books at my house. As I was typing out my response, it occurred to me that clearly this person knew me...because this was the most perfect way to kidnap me. But when I sent my response, it was: where do you live?
I hopped into the rickety gray mini van that my brother and I share, and I cruised around the block as I waited for an address. It wasn't long before I got a response that sent me a couple blocks south of my home, and around the block to a garage sale. It was the garage on the corner, and I figured I would just drive past and look to see if the books were any good because I didn't need to get out of the car and talk to the creeper who texted me.
When I drove past in the wheezing gray mini van, I took a good look at the garage, and at the people who were running the joint.
The garage was full of books. I kid you not, I'm fairly certain that every inch of the shelving in that garage was covered in books. And the people who were running the garage sale were this cute old couple, neither of whom were bent over a cell phone and texting like mad. In fact, from that distance I could tell that this couple's thumbs were probably not quite nimble enough to text with the speed required to have gotten me here so soon. I figured I was safe, so I parked the mini van around the corner and strolled up to the garage sale.
"Hi," I said, smiling timidly. "I heard there were free books here?"
The man looked a little grumpy about this announcement, but the lady was cheerful as she smiled at me and gestured at the shelves stuffed with books.
"Of course, take as many as you'd like!" she said, the very picture of a grandmother presenting her grandchildren with a bowl full of fresh Halloween candy.
"Take 'em all," the man growled, crossing his arms over his chest like a toddler in time out.
"Just ignore him, he doesn't understand the romance of a good book," the lady said, waving her hand at her husband. I nodded sagely and plunged into the garage in search of a good book. Or five.
Now keep in mind that I had just gotten home from the library where I picked up three books that were on my list and one book because the title Alien Tango intrigued me in an absurd sort of way. So I had plenty to read. There was no reason for me to pick up a new couple of books. But I kept finding books. I had my arms full of books within fifteen minutes because I decided that my best tactic was to be picky. I could probably have fit a garage full of books in the mini van, but the problem would be when I got all those books home.
Smirking that I hadn't fallen for the free books trap just to get kidnapped, I thanked the couple profusely and made my way back to the car where I examined my finds. I was halfway through my stack when I found a book that I don't remember picking up.
"That's weird..." I mumbled, slumping in the backseat of the mini van and paging through the unrecognized book. As I flipped through the pages, it felt like the pages were starting to stick to my fingers with a velcro kind of urgency. By the time I got to the end of the book, I felt my fingers sticking to the pages, the very tips of my fingers disappearing into the paper. "What the hell..."
And with a gigantic slurp, the book swallowed me whole. It was in that moment that I realized that I had been kidnapped after all.
"Be awesome! Be a book nut!"
- Dr. Seuss
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