Points of Annoyance, number 2

Annoyance #2:

Today I attended a book sale at the Coralville Library. I have been to many of these triannual events, and I usually come away with some decent books and a few CDs. I frequent the book store attached to the Iowa City library once a week, and I have probably had the most success there. I try to get to book sales around town before they start so that I can be one of the first to rifle through the collection. My book buying has decreased in the last year, so I am coming away with almost nothing now, but I am still a regular, and when I talk about book sale etiquette and behavior, you can consider me somewhat of an expert. The following are some rules that you might want to abide by if you want to succeed in the book sale culture. Author's note: I find all of these rules repulsive, and if I were the book sale CEO, I would change everything, but this is just the way it works, and until we pass a book sale reform, we'll have to live with it.

1. Wear your shabbiest clothes: This goes for most sales that involve selling used items, but it is especially true of booksales, primarily because readers take pride in their nasty clothes. As if making a point that the beauty is inside the brain, people line up with old flannels and t-shirts with drooping right-side chest pockets. I actually think I wore a tee-shirt with a pocket to a booksale recently. It was an old black Gap shirt that my brother John wore in high school. See?

2. Bring boxes, preferably on a dolly: When you bring boxes, it means you are serious, you know the drill, you are not going to find one thing to read but rather you are going to add to your overstuffed collection of hardbacks that you are going to hawk on Amazon. Not only that, but the boxes invariably make you a bigger body and give you an edge for bullying. As a side note: Although serious bookbuyers always plan ahead by bringing their boxes, they never think far enough ahead about getting out of the building once their boxes are full. Some bring dollys, but moving those boxes o' books out of anywhere is an obstacle that most of these sedentary folks have difficulty handling. It is always great to watch the guy who bullied you out of the "history" aisle with his big box struggle to get out of the building with his full box.

3. If you are a young mother, pretend that getting to the kids' books first is a matter of life or death: The young mothers are a particularly enjoyable bunch, especially the kind that deem it necessary to go to booksales. Oftentimes, these are the kinds of mothers that aggressively eschew tv, which is honorable I guess, but it makes for some eye-popping eccentricities as well as a mind-blowing competitive streak. You have never seen a 30-year-old woman walk with as much purpose and ferocity as when they open the door to the booksale. Two blew by me this morning even though I was ten or so people ahead of them in line, and one cut me off because she was going right (where the kids stuff is) when I was going left (where the CDs are). I almost fell, but she didn't. Once these aggressive moms get to the children's book bins, it is like a congregation of Kurt Rambises and Karl Malones down low with the lethal elbows they throw. There is also a weird noise that emanates out of the children's section, like shortness of breath and strange yelps and moans. It is a frightening sound, mitigated only by the shuffling of thin books and the crackle of plastic bins. The sound is unlike anything I've ever heard. I am imitating it right now, but I don't know how to describe it. Two booksales ago, I decided to jump in the mix, and I couldn't really hold my own. The ladies' hands moved swifter than a concert pianist and their elbows were just plain dangerous. They also had a fairly haphazard way of discerning what was valuable for their kids. I am no children's lit expert, but I still can't figure out why gems like "The Boy Who Held Back the Sea" are overlooked in favor of Chris Van Allsburg's stuff. I would admire the young moms' ingenuity in all this, if they didn't completely ignore their crying, angry, claustrophobic kids stuck in strollers that are constantly getting moved around by uncaring booksale patrons.

4. Talk to yourself: I think this is just the nature of the beast for readers, but for some reason, you must talk to yourself as you are scanning the possible books. This morning, I immediately went to the CDs, as I always do, and there was a guy, a familiar that I am not too fond of, who was talking to his hands: "Move faster, hands, what's wrong with you!" as his hands scanned the CDs. The other guy looking at the CDs (not me) acted as though this were normal even though I started giggling. I then asked him if his hands usually move faster, but he didn't respond. I guess I should have asked the hands.

5. Don't trust young upstarts in the profession: That means, don't trust me. I always have a backpack, I never bring a box nor a scanner that gives me Amazon or Ebay prices, I smirk, and I am deceptively fast. The young moms hate my guts, and the older men (I'll get to them in a second) usually ask me where I'm from and why I come to see if they can trust me. I always answer "Coralville" for where I am from, and I always say "student" for what I do. They don't bother me after that, but they do occasionally eye me with distrust.

6. Bring your scanner: This would be the most loathsome of booksale patrons' practices, if it weren't for numbers 1-5 and 7-9. Many buyers also sell, whether it is on ebay or amazon, so they bring these scanner things and scan each book, one by one, to see its official market value. I hate it--goes against all that a booksale stands for. But we are capitalists, dammit, so our hideous practices must go on, all in the name of the free market! I'd like to think that books lie outside the system, especially when charity organizations are selling them only locally for 50 cents or a dollar, but they don't when the scanner people appear. To my chagrin, the scanners don't like Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, or Al Franken, so their books are always the leftovers. If anyone wants really bad political hacks writing crappy books, just ask me, and I will buy you one thousand. I am assuming in a year, the shelves will be stocked with Sarah Palin memoirs. Does anyone want Bill Clinton's "My Life"?

7. Breathe loudly and make random sighs when you are looking over the books: I already discussed this with the young mothers, but the other buyers usually include older men with asthma or other respiratory issues that makes their breathing especially audible, which leads me to the next, most pungent part of booksaling,

8. Smell, in any bodily way you can make yourself smell: I am pretty sure, in the hypercompetitive market of used book sales, consumers will use any advantage they can get. Readers and bibliophiles are usually creative types, and unconventional, and so their strategies for landing the right books are occasionally bordering on the obscene, including amassing wild body odor and allowing flatulence to clear rooms and aisles. This tactic, mixed with the shabby clothes and sighs, have almost dissuaded me from coming back, but I have to admit, I have recently found it not so much gross as impressive. I guess that is how we all get desensitized to things. Nevertheless, the array of smells in a used book sale usually do not include that "old book smell" that bibliophiles crave. Those smells are enjoyed in the privacy of their own home, while other smells are released for the swinish multitudes. The thing is, book sales are often held in close quarters, and aisles are tight, so you can smell up a room or section with one foul swoop, breath, or silent but violent, as the case may be.

9. Make terrible jokes with the volunteers to assuage your guilt over acting like a complete ass. Again, this is a hypercompetitive environment, but there are usually kindly old ladies working these book sales, and it is embarrassing when they witness the ruthlessness of the book buyer, so bad jokes are necessary, including one I heard a few months ago when a regular said something like "Bet you didn't know you'd be selling to herds of cattle!" You'd think readers would have some better jokes, but they don't.

I don't know why I continue to attend these things, but I do. Maybe it is the voyeurism. All I know is that this is an untapped subculture, ripe for good treatment. I wonder if any of these folks double as Hot Wheels collectors?