Sep 24, 2008

I took an expediton to the house of porn today

No, really. True Story. I've been planning this expedition for almost a week. As some of you know, I am perfectly happy being a hermit, and I don't get out much. I like to stay home. Don't judge me. However, last Friday, my "I" quit working on my laptop keyboard. I poked at it a little while, shook the laptop like an Etch-a-Sketch a few times, and it still wouldn't work. Since it was Friday, and when I do go anywhere, it certainly isn't on a Friday, or Saturday or Sunday, and Monday's are out of the question, so that left Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday of this week. So I planned for today to take the laptop to the Geeks. I couldn't sleep much last night knowing I had set myself up to accomplish something by actually leaving the house. Don't judge me.

Meanwhile, the "I" not working was driving me nuts, and to make a long story short (ha, jokes on you, have you ever know me to be brief?), I finally just popped the cover of the "I" off the keyboard, and poked around in there a little, examining the guts of the "I" along with the underside of the keypad. Oh…so that's how it works. I carefully pressed the cover of the "I" back on, listening for the little click sound when I pressed the corners of the key cover back over the guts of the key. Guess what!! It worked. I'm a Geek. That will be $50.00, thank you very much.

Alas, when I then tried to type a sentence, the "M" wouldn't work. Repeat the "I" procedure with the "M" key. I then checked every key on the keyboard. All okay. About ten minutes later, the "J" quit working. Wha…….. Repeat process. Got the "J" working, then it was the "K". OK, why does my keyboard hate me. I have always treated it with TLC (or TC as the case may be.) Got the "K" working, then it was the comma. So I have lived without a comma since last week, deciding this process of me fixing each key was going to cycle through the entire QWERTY system. This all led to me planning an out of the house expedition for today.

I get up, actually get dressed (never leaving the house saves a lot of getting dressed time), brushed at the hair, packed the laptop in its nice little padded tote, load the purse and the laptop into the Cap'n's Expedition. See, Cap'n is not home this week, so I decided to take a joyride in that big boat. Shhh, don't tell. I was doing this the ask forgiveness rather than permission way. Really, I hate to drive the Expedition. The thing is as big as a ship and has so much stuff on it. Things beep and chime and twirl and I don't even know what a lot of that stuff does. I was very careful not to adjust anything; I pressed the #2 button for the seat adjustments so I wouldn't deprogram his special selection of seat comfort (and his hiney is special, if y'know what I mean). (And not in the same way his knees are special.) I never could get comfortably situated myself, but I never am when driving it.

Why didn't I drive my own car, you ask? Well, I have a nine year old little Chevy Tracker that I just love. It's tiny, I can reach everything inside from the driver's seat, and it fits easily in any parking place (and you can just carry it in your tote bag if you can't find a parking place). Never mind that the driver's side window won't go back up after you lower it. You have to press the "up" button while pushing the glass up and into the groove at the same time. And the passenger door will not automatically lock or unlock. Yeah, I have to get those things mended, but I still love the Tracker. However, apparently I had lost the new '09 registration sticker. Sure enough, if I even thought about driving it the approximate five miles to the tax collector's office to get a replacement sticker, I would have gotten stopped and ticketed before I ever got out of my subdivision. So that's why I drove the big "E".

No sooner than I turned the key in the ignition and cranked up the Expedition, my cell rang. Yep, it was Cap'n. Was I busted? Not yet. I turned the engine off and jumped out of the Expedition, because somehow I just knew that he would know I was sitting in it with the engine running. He had called to ask me to fetch a couple of forms, scan them and email them to him. So that meant taking the laptop back inside, doing the scanning, sending by email, all while feeling like I was in trouble. After I got the email sent, just for the heck of it, I opened up Word and typed a comma. Yippee! Comma was back and working. I typed an entire page of commas. I typed an entire page of all letters and numbers, just to make sure everything worked. It's a miracle!

Since I was ready to go on my expedition in the Expedition, I went ahead and got the replacement tag for my car, and since I had a coupon for Best Buy, headed on over there and used it to buy "Eureka" Season 2. Just walking along the aisles at Best Buy, I was getting a little shaky and my heart was beating a little faster, and my face felt kind of flushed. Yes, it could be hot flashes, get out of my way, but I'm sure it was just, that last copy is mine grandma, the excitement of being out on the town, will this checkout line ever move, anticipating the next stop on my excursion—the House of Porn.

Yes, the House of Porn—another way of saying the Library. The Library branch that I use is right across the street from Best Buy. It is on the Community College's campus, so the speed limit is 10 mph. It seemed like it took me forever to get across the street and meander through the several parking areas and another little street before pulling into the parking lot of the library. I parked in the space farthest from the door (Expedition, you know. Never can be too careful). I fondled my special tag keychain, making sure the colorful library card tag was still attached, and started on the hike to the entrance. I was already worn out from my visit to the tax office and Best Buy, and it was a pretty day outside, so I took my time, walking slowly, anticipating. A mother pushing a stroller with a babe in it, one on her hip, and another hanging on to her skirt beat me to the door, along with an ancient man with a cane. But that's okay, there's plenty of porn, er….books, for all.

Yes, this was an exciting day. You see, I haven't been to the library in a long time. Before I retired, I never had time. My boss was mean, I hated her. Then when I did retire (fired by mean boss), I have been reading my shelves of books I've been collecting over the years, always intending to read, but never getting around to it. Do you know how hard it has been for me not to check out what is in my cart at Amazon.com? Not because I love shopping so much, but because I love books. And being at the library today, walking slowly along the stacks, running my fingers lightly over the spines, mesmerized by the many sizes, color combinations, the stylish fonts and art...oooh, it gives me shivers just thinking about it. I think the librarian returning books to the stacks was eying me suspiciously a few times, probably alarmed when my eyes started glazing over, and then again when I sat down in the aisle in order to access those titles that end up way down on the bottom shelf (those are some of the best ones, you know, the ones you must search for).

Finally, I had my armload of books, and watched, fascinated as the librarians tag-teamed their way through them, flipping them open, stacking, stickering and scanning my selections, all without judging me. (You see, I was sure they were secretly looking at my checkout history and realizing that I hadn't been to the library in a long, long time.) I had selected a few thrillers, a mystery, two action-romance paperbacks (men with guns, now you can't get much hotter than that), a Philippa Gregory title, and some titles with those two very pretentious words somewhere on the cover--"a novel". Well, duh. I did check it out of the fiction, and it was a book, what was it going to be? Don't even get me started on that.

I gather that if you made it this far into my leaving the house adventure, you now know what my trigger is. Books = porn for me. Its been this way ever since I was little and the Bookmobile rolled into our little town of 98 residents during the summer time, and I climbed those shaky, drop down steps into the air-conditioned library on wheels. I was amazed I could walk out with an armload of books. And all for free. Nothing can beat that.

So today, in memory of summers of bookmobiles and vacations, I am sitting here in my comfy chair, just popped the top off of a pina colada, and am going to grab a book and start enjoying, for free, the black words on white paper, and make me some new friends.

Bookshelves at the Library image copyright Ken Zirkel at iStockPhoto.

2 comments:

Roughnight said...

Heh heh heh. I was going to be mad at you Princess, but when I saw you took the ship without permission for a good purpose.....wait! WHAT! The Library. Are you out of your gourd?

The mates are gonna give me hell about this; they say you have me wrapped around your little finger as it is.

Kopperhead said...

Uh oh. Um. Cap'n, I'll make it up to you, I promise. As soon as you're back home, we'll cuddle up under the sheets and I'll read to you.