A Sixpack For A Penny


 I no longer read like I used to. The thrill is gone which is like losing my best friend. As a child I rifled change from Mom's purse to buy a book from the Scholastic list whenever I could. It was something I looked forward to because I always had a book in my hand. 

Then something amazing happened. What's this!? Six books for 99 cents!? Well, sign me up. I'm sure there was a warning somewhere in there that said you had to be eighteen or older. That didn't stop this fourteen year old from perusing the catalogue of free books. Naturally there was a hook. You had to buy a certain number of books throughout the year. Details, details. Meh. It took me a long time to choose from the seemingly countless array of choices and not because they looked so enticing, but they didn't peak my interest. If I recall, there were quite a number of romance novels. I didn't need or want those. Mom had a pile I had already been through and even to this teenager they seemed insipid. [A woman for some reason, let's call her Lacey, arrives at a mansion where two brothers compete for her time and body. One is cruel and arrogant, the other kind and weak. She chooses the cruel, but misunderstood brother] They all chose the angry, angst ridden, self centered asshat and the other brother ran off a cliff.

Of all the books listed before me, I finally made my choice. There is only one that I actually remember because I still have it and I still love it. It's a fantasy novel about a witch who keeps in her spell a young woman, a toad, a fish, a bird and a cat who finally escape and adventures ensue.*

But before I received my six choices with a penny, I was a nervous wreck because one day a large box would arrive that was addressed to me. How was I going to get it past the parents? Dad usually checked the mailbox before we could get to it. Drat! 

The other problem was how I was going to be able to pay for a book that cost real money!? I would have to babysit the Gunderson boys who were vile little shits who had in the past tied me up with Christmas lights (still on the tree) tried to electrocute me, spitball me and poison me. 

It seemed like an eternity until finally the day arrived. In a stroke of luck the parents were not around so I grabbed my prize and ran to my room.

If you are a book reader, you know the smell of these wonderful objects. Multiply by six and I was having a moment. Better than the fresh worksheets hot off the Ditto machine.

Somehow I got through the year without anyone the wiser, except for me because I read books and didn't even have to watch the Gundersons after all. It really was a good year for me.

I am saddened to note the Doubleday book club is shutting down in September. Sales are down. Books are just too expensive, the ones you can hold and sniff and cry on anyway. I miss my friends. I don't know how to bring them back to me. 

Thank-you, Doubleday and Scholastic books for making my early days a little better. 

*Oh, for Pete's sake. This is AI's gobbledygook about the book, 'The Unlikely Ones.' They just make shit up, the bastards.

It was a toad, a fish, a bird and a cat! There was no swan or Mother Mitchell!




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