I may not work at a bookstore, but that doesn’t mean I’m no longer a bookseller. Gas Station Burrito Used Books is open for business

I used to joke that all of the books I was buying and stockpiling and collecting, (because collecting is just the word hoarders use to sound less creepy) was my retirement fund.  One day I’d be retired with nothing else to do but write and drink coffee and read.  And yell at those goddamned kids to get off my lawn.  I can’t wait to yell at kids.  And I’ll get to do all this while wearing dapper old man sweaters. Probably with my new slacks, since I’d be at the age then to use the word slacks without sounding creepy.  I’d be an old, respectable, non-creepy book collecting, slacks wearing old man.  Life would be good.

Life would be good because I’d finally get to read all these books that I bought over the years; the ones that sounded interesting enough to take as advanced readers, or to buy for a few dollars at a yard sale or used book sale.  They were interesting enough to buy, but never quite interesting enough to read immediately.  Or I’d start reading one only to get distracted by a dozen other equally interesting titles.

Unfortunately, it just isn’t possible to hold onto all these books anymore.  As I may have to with my actual retirement fund (the one that allegedly has real money in it, depending on the mood of the stock market), it’s time to cash it in.

When I moved in with my girlfriend about 99% of my books had to get boxed up; we simply didn’t have the room in the apartment.  This didn’t stop me from buying more books, you understand, it only meant that the ones I had before went into storage.  I even bought second copies of books I knew were boxed up because it was easier than digging through my storage unit (read: my parent’s attic)

When we bought a house, we filled a spare bedroom with all the boxes of books we had and eventually got around to sorting them into what we were keeping and what had to be donated.

By sort, of course, I mean fight about what had to stay and what to go.  Books are very serious in this house.  There have been tears. Those tears may have been mine…

The plan was to donate the twenty or so boxes of books and movies that didn’t make the cut to the annual used book sale at the Kenmore Library, but we missed the drop-off.  Nothing’s going on with that room yet, so I suppose we could shut the door and ignore them until next year, or even donate them somewhere else.  But that would require me carrying all of those boxes down the stairs and making multiple trips to wherever.  Look, they just put up another season of Longmire on Netflix, I don’t have time for that.

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Or, instead, I could put them up for sale.  Then I only have to carry the books down the stairs one at a time.  As they sell.  And people give me money.  Much better plan.

The movies are all doubles from when we merged our collections, so don’t judge me for selling my Bourne collection.  Don’t worry, dude, I still have copies.

And the books, well, they’re a little bit of everything.  From titles I bought for school to ‘advanced readers’ publishers sent out ahead of a book’s release, to terrible late-night Wikipedia rabbit-hole induced used book purchases.

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There’s good and bad, the expected and ‘why, just why’ titles.  It’s going to take a while to get everything posted and organized and sorted, so check them out, bookmark the pages, and keep checking back.

I’m proud of all my books, even the ones I’m selling off.  There was a reason I picked up everyone one of them, something in every one of these books that made me take it home.  I hope you find something in there you like, too.