Fear and Loathing At the Millcreek Library Book Sale: No Country For Vampire Haters: and A Weird Tangent About My Weird Obsesssion With "The Road"

My phone rang at 9:49 AM and scared the bejeezus out of both of my cats. I sprung from my bed wild-eyed and confused, still shaking off the cobwebs of some old, re-running dream about The Destroyer, or something like that. I grabbed at my phone next to my bed just as I saw the furry shadows of Loki and Leonard sliding out the door.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Are you going to be at the library at 10:00?"

"Of course. I said. I'm on my way right now. I'm almost there, in fact. Don't you worry about me, little sister. I'm a responsible morning person. I'm in heavy traffic. See you soon."

I hung up and sprung into action. I had almost forgot about this trip. The Millcreek Library is closing, and all their books are up for grabs to the most brutal shopper. It goes without saying that as an amateur doctor of journalism, and professional appreciator of fine literature, I had to be there.

I wasn't expecting too much trouble, really. Just a bunch of old people crowding around tables and sifting through mountains of forgotten titles. I figured I could pluck myself a copy of "The Crossing" by Cormac McCarthy if I was lucky. Why not?

Nineteen minutes after I woke up I arrived at the scene, and was confronted with the sheer terror of a very long line. There were people backed up out of the rec center, and then for 100 yards or so down the sidewalk. I was already beginning to lose my will to live.

Now you should understand, I have worked hard for many years to avoid standing in lines. I always sneer at those who live in tents on the sidewalk in front of the BestBuy during November. Last year I actually asked one of them if he thought it was worth it to miss Thanksgiving Dinner to get a discount on a laptop computer? He told me that it was all good because his family was going to bring some Thanksgiving Dinner to him right there. At that point I thought about verbally assaulting him, or maybe a firm kick to the teethe was called for, but then I reflected that even if I did he would never understand why.

But that was a beast of a different flavor. This line would take no more than two hours at the most, I figured, and I was determined to get some books for 25 cents each. So I settled into the line with my sister. I made some casual conversation with some middle-aged ladies. It seemed like a civilized crowd. There were no sinister elements. We learned that every twenty minutes they were allowing 75 people inside who would then have 20 minutes to peruse, then they would be forced into the check-out lines, and out the door for the next group. All in all it seemed like a fairly reasonable, and efficient way of doing business. Two hours later I learned the truth.

At the door there was a shiny-headed man who briefly explained the rules to us, and then unleashed us beyond the doors. I was one of the first in the group, and I was walking quietly toward the fiction section when I heard a shrill voice ring out above the crowd.

"Quick! Go look for the Twilights while I look for....."

The rest of that sentence was lost to me. The mention of Twilight had suddenly kicked every female in the room into an hormone-induced frenzy. It was a bloodlust that I knew could only be satisfied by the death of all non-Edward males in the room. I barely had time to scream, "God's mercy on you bitches!" before I was trampled over and absorbed by the mob.

I tried to let myself go. Don't fight it, I thought to myself. It will be over soon. Just a few more agonizing moments and then eternal sleep. But then I found myself suddenly lying under a table clutching two strange books that I had never seen before in my life, and a voice was calling out, "15 minutes!"

I'm alive. There's no time to waste. I peered out to get my bearings. The bestial frenzy was magnificent to behold. Never before had so many people tried to look at so many things all at the same time. At this moment I understood with perfect clarity what is meant by the phrase, "running to and fro", because that is exactly what was happening all around me. Amidst the chaos there were a few calm souls. They were methodically scanning the barcodes of all the books one at a time with devices attached to their iphones. I have no idea what this means. But I didn't have time to think about it for very long.

I began scanning the titles of all the books in the fiction hardcovers, With my eyes.(Incidentally, I was doing this much faster than the iphone scanner people). I found myself a copy of "Cities of the Plain", by Cormac McCarthy. That book follows "The Crossing", in the Border Trilogy. But "The Crossing" still eludes my grasp. Alas. But I found a whole bunch of other worthwhile books in the process. All in all I bought 16 books for $7.00. I call it a successful shopping adventure. I now go home to nurse the stilletto heel shaped wounds in my back.






On another note. I also found my fourth copy of "The Road". I paid only 25 cents for it, of course. Before you accuse me of having a weird obsession, allow me to defend myself. It goes without saying that I do have a weird obsession with that book. I feel compelled to keep buying it. I have read it twice, and I think today I might read it again. I bought my first copy at Walmart because I wanted to read it. I bought the second copy at Sam Wellers because it was in hard cover and I intend to keep that. Then I loaned out my original copy to a lot of people. It is currently somewhere in West Valley at this moment. I'm not sure I'll ever see it again. Nevertheless, people keep wanting to borrow it, so I reluctantly loaned out my hard cover. It is somewhere in Provo right now. So then I saw a copy of it at Sam Wellers, of the first paperback edition, without any Oprah Book Club, or Pullitzer Prize stickers on it. So I bought that one, and almost immediately loaned it out somewhere.

I feel completely obligated to keep on spreading that dark gospel, so I think from now on I will just buy them whenever I come across them, and amass a ridiculous collection of it that can be spread across the globe so that whenever I want to read it I can just call up my nearest friend and demand they give their copy back to me immediately.

So you see, it all makes perfectly reasonable sense.