Journal of a Sabbatical

July 21, 2000

the price of admission

Today's Reading: not a darn thing

Today's Starting Pitcher: Tim Wakefield

Since when does a bookstore charge admission? I took a field trip to Portsmouth this afternoon to check out this enormous used book store called, creatively, Old Books. Books are stacked to rafters. It's nearly impossible to move in the store. The shelves are so close together I have a hard time turning around in the aisles. But I'm getting ahead of myself. For the privilege of squeezing into the store, I must pay a $5 admission fee. The owner says it's deducted from the your purchase price if you spend $25. I hesitate for a few seconds, but the lure of stacks and stacks of old books was too much for me. I pay the five bucks.

The owner directs me to the bird book section. The end of the aisle is blocked with a 6 foot high stack of cartons, all containing books. Once I squeeze past that, I nearly trip over a three foot stack of Playboys piled on the floor. Antiquarian Playboy? Just past the Playboy stack, two shelves of bird books. I go through them methodically. To my delight I find a thin, battered copy of W.H. Hudson's Birds of La Plata in cardboard covers for only five bucks. The engravings are gorgeous. OK so that doesn't get me my original five bucks back. I keep browsing. The next treasure is an illustrated poem called A Penguin in New York. It's hilarious. The illustrations are all pen and ink in black and white. Everything is black and white and penguin-like. It's only $7.50. More browsing yields nothing I want and I can't get myself from the bird section to any kind of local Americana section (which he's not sure he has anyway) or any John Marquand novels. I decide to buy these strange little treasures and hit the next bookstore along Rt. 1 (for used book aficionados, Rt. 1 in coastal NH is destination browsing at its best).

I squeeze back out of the aisle, sucking in my gut and walking on tiptoe. The owner is stacking books by the door. I tell him I've found stuff but not $25 worth. He agrees to credit me with the five bucks admission fee anyway. I reach in my pocket for $7.50 and all I have is a $20 bill. Normally this would not be a problem, right? He can't change a $20. No small bills at all. I ask if he takes credit cards. Of course not. But he can take a check. A check? I haven't carried a checkbook in 22 years. We're at an impasse.

The store owner suggests I go get change and come back. I put the books down on the counter, convinced they'll disappear into another stack if I move. I think. How much do I want these books? I mumble something about not wanting them that much and turn to leave. He asks if I'm coming back. I mumble something about how ATMs only give twenties. He looks wistful as I walk away.

West Nile virus is on the move heading north. Public health officials advise avoiding contact with mosquitoes. Now here's a question: Am I more likely to die of West Nile virus (or the more prevalent in Massachusetts and Rhode Island Triple-E) or of cancer caused by using insect repellents that contain deet? Given that deet is still sold over the counter, albeit with detailed warnings about its use, my guess would be the probability of getting cancer from normal use of deet is pretty low. And the West Nile virus hasn't made it to Rhode Island yet, but Connecticut is perilously close... I've gotten one mosquito bite this season and haven't come down with Triple-E. And to my knowledge, greenheads don't carry any of these diseases. They just hurt like hell and make you bleed like a stuck pig. Should I add this to my list of health issues to worry about? No, probably not.

Oh, and the Red Sox have finally called up Tomo Oka from Pawtucket. I guess they were going to call up Paxton Crawford again but he had some bizarre accident in his hotel room in Ottawa, which resulted in several stitches to lacerations on his back. Joe and Jerry, the radio announcers are discussing conflicting reports of how many stitches it was. Personally I want to know how one gets a lacerated back in a hotel room in Ottawa. Then again, maybe I don't want to know.