The Book

It’s funny that today’s word is “book” because I spent most of Friday surrounded by books.

I was at the Op Shop. I don’t usually go on Fridays but one of the other volunteers was away so I was helping out. It can be a big job for just one person. Anyway, there were not a lot of customers so I decided to continue tidying in the book room which had become very untidy. It’s a tiny room and as boxes of donated books had been dumped in there to be sorted out it was getting very hard to browse comfortably. I’d spent a couple of hours on it earlier in the week but this time I wanted to tackle a particularly messy corner.

It’s always best to work in there when it is quiet because there is not enough room in the aisles to pass anyone. A few customers came in to look at books but apart from a few interruptions, I was able to sort most of the donations that would not fit on the shelves into boxes and label them alphabetically. This will make it easier for me to restock the shelves as space becomes available.

We also keep CD’s, DVD’s, cassette tapes and computer games in that room and these too, were a terrible mess but by culling most of the games, I don’t think games for Windows XP sell much these days, I was able to create space for the boxes.

I was feeling satisfied with my day’s work when ten minutes before closing time a customer asked me if we had any books by a certain author. There were none on the shelves but I knew I’d see one when I was sorting. He was determined to have it and at closing time he was still rummaging in the box it was in. He found what he was looking for but I didn’t want to go back in there and see what sort of mess he might have left.

If I hadn’t tidied up I would not have known we had that book.