The Book Guru Girl

I’ve somehow acquired the bad habit of attending fairs, sales events, open houses, fundraisers and other typical community affairs for the specific purposes of making off with treasure.  It seems that freely available at every stand can be found a fine selection of colorful pens, cheap candy, monogrammed notepads, magnets with logos on them, water bottles, keychains, and small plastic animals.  Who among us does not have a love of small plastic animals? 

Many a time I’ve traveled to such an affair and returned with a baggie full of things I’ll probably never use again.  A duck-shaped pen to add to my collection of duck-shaped pens, a clever magnet to stack on top of all my other clever magnets, a bottle of water to put away in hopes of drinking it at some point and then re-using the bottle to make, perhaps, an air-compressor-controlled plastic submarine (this never happens, of course: the bottle will inevitably find its way into the back seat of my car and proceed to roll about underneath one of the seats until someone finds it six months later, opens it, takes a sip, and then complains about the staleness and warmness of the plastic-infused substance sloshing about inside).  I can’t help it.  Piles of writing implements and neatly-wrapped sugary petroleum byproducts call to me with tiny pleading voices, and I can’t deny them sanctuary.  “Freeeeee,” they say, just below the auditory range of everyone else in sight, “Freeeeee….”

And so I break down, dash up to the table, and add another mass-produced cheap product to my ever-growing collection of mostly-useless free stuff. 

Okay, I will admit that the pens can be useful.  Most of the pens I own were not, in fact, ever acquired through more legitimate means than swiping them from a charity table or picking them up off the floor.  Same for most of my refrigerator magnets (I mean, who actually buys those?).  All the same, as much as I love small plastic animals, they’re starting to become a walking hazard.  Have you ever stepped on a thumb-sized rhinoceros while attempting to stumble downstairs at five in the morning?