Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Freebies from the Public Library, or, Your Romance Needs Fulfilled

If you can get up at 7 am and get your coffee drunk so that you're ready to face the world, and if you can bully the girls into getting dressed in a reasonable amount of time (not always a sure thing, as evidenced by this morning, when Willow's failure to dress herself in an hour sent her into hysterics when I told her that we were going to miss Storytime at the library), and if you can feed them a breakfast that doesn't contain ANYTHING messy that would mean they'd have to change clothes again before going out, and if they can find their shoes, and if you can find the car keys, then you could go to the free day at the public library's book sale and you, too, could bring home all of this:
The bag on the left is all romance novels--50 of them from which my 46 students can choose later this semester, for their final paper that will be a comparison of a gender ideology within their romance novel to a subversion of that ideology in another cultural artifact:
The bag on the right is my stuff--outdated craft books that sometimes have some really interesting projects or methods, cookbooks, travel guides to use in scrapbooking vacations we've been on, and educational materials that might be good to use with the girls:And the girls' shopping cart--that's all their stuff, carefully filled to the maximum allowed capacity. At the book sale there was this other kid, maybe four years old? Now, I don't necessarily offer my own children appropriate supervision, but my kids fortunately don't go get all up in strangers' business when we're out and about, either. So as I'm trying to pick out 50 romance novels, squatting in the middle of an aisle and the girls are "helping" me and I'm trying to read back covers so I can pick out ones that will be useful for my students, this kid comes up and keeps trying to throw books into my paper bag and I'm all, "No, thank you," and he's all trying to move my arm so he can get the book into the bag and I'm all "NO, thank you!" but trying to be nice because he's not my own kid, so I can't yell at him, and where the heck is his parent?

So then he walks over to the girls and starts fighting with them over domination of the cart, and I'm all "It's their special shopping cart, sweetie, but you can have a turn pushing it if you want," and then he shoves Sydney, who shrieks, and starts grabbing their books out of their cart, and I'm all, "NO, sweetie, those are their books!", and then I'm all done, so I tell the girls we are leaving posthaste and the kid STANDS on the girls' cart so they can't push it and I'm carrying two full bags of books and trying to tell this random kid to get OFF and he's ignoring me and I'm wondering if I can maybe just kick him, just a little, but then his parent finally sees him and threatens to whup his ass so we're free to leave, the girls with their ample treasures intact:
If that kid tries it again at the free day of the Red Cross book sale I WILL kick him, because the Red Cross free day is hard-core.

6 comments:

Abby said...

this is one of the most awesome things i've ever freaking read.

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm...I'm liking your paper assignment topic.

Hubby and I refer to kids like this as WHATKiPs (Pronounced What-kips:

Where
(the)
H*!!
Are
This
Kid's
Parents

Oh yeah. Next time give that little WHATKiP what for. Better still, stand up on a stack of books and loudly start proclaiming, "Excuse Me! Has anyone misplaced their brat? He's over here, standing in my cart, terrorizing my children and being a nuisance. Please retrieve him before I shove him out the door with a Free-To-A-Good-Home sign around his neck."

Anonymous said...

Dear lord, I actually BUSTED out laughing in my shared office at the Red Cross book fair comment. BUSTED OUT laughing.

Because I know. I've been there.

cake said...

crack me up.
again.

oh, and i am dying to show you a couple of books i got on the first day of the library sale. one is illustrated by the same artist that did the book i can't find anywhere for under $200. the one i want to ILL.
and the other is just an awesome "shapes" book, that i know you would appreciate.

i want to see what your girls scored.

Cate said...

Another use for cheezy romance novels? Anniversary card inserts.
1) Cut out sleazy passage
2) Glue in card to the hubby or significant other.
3) Enjoy his blushing!

;)

Anonymous said...

I was too stressed to laugh at your account of this kid at the sale. Seriously. Not that my kids are angels, but they just don't do stuff like that so I'm not prepared to deal with kids who get in my face.

I think I need a stiff drink now.