Bookish Intimidation

It was a lovely Sunday afternoon, dear readers and loyal subjects.  The sun was shining.  The birds were singing.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky... okay, I exaggerate.  I think it was sort of overcast, but that's hardly the point I'm trying to make here.  The point is that it was a perfectly lovely day, and I was getting to do one of my very favorite things, hang out in the book store!

I love a bookstore.  I admit it.  I love books.  I like to see them and to touch them and even smell them.  I don't like sniffing them as much as I used to enjoy sniffing those purple newly memeographed pages they used to hand out in my elementary school, but I'm pretty sure those things made kids high!  It's a lot like those Marks-A-Lot markers that you can sniff and get a little dizzy.  Holy canolli, people!  I was an elementary school druggie!  Well poo.  I didn't see that coming.   Oh well, I think I quit cold turkey about the time the photocopier became more widely used.  Photocopies don't smell nearly as good as mimeographed copies... or books.  I think I was talking about books.  Yes, that's right. I remember now.

Anyway, there I was in my favorite bookstore and I was enjoying myself thoroughly.  I had no idea that the book store was lulling me into a false sense of security when all the while its nefarious plan was to intimidate and bully me once I reached the craft section.  Woe is me... well WAS me.  I'm better now.  But maybe I should start at the beginning.  You see, it happened like this.  I started off at the entrance and life was good...

It was just lovely, I tell you.  There was a whole table full of cupcake related items.  There were cupcake puzzles and cupcake notepads and... more cupcake puzzles.  Apparently they didnt' have a huge selection of cupcake items but I did think it was nice that they set them all out for me.  Don't you?!

From there I went to the blank book section because who DOESN'T love a blank book. There I found this little gem:

Can you believe it?!  It was a shiny leopard print covered blank book?!  I mean, they even matched my shoes?!  How could you not fall in love with a blank book that matches your shoes?!  You can't, right?!  Who's with me?!  

But that's where the lulling ended, I'm afraid.  That's when I went to....

the craft section.  (Insert ominous "DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUN" here please. Thanks!)

It started innocently enough.  It was just a book, a book about Origami!

Yes, this was the book that led me down the intimidation trail.  It was a book on origami for busy people.  It boasted 27 original on-the-go projects.  That's what caught my eye... "on-the-go."  Really?  Portable origami?  This book was clearly taunting me.  I mean, I'm not that hot at origami on the best of days, but on-the-go?!  Who does that?!  Who carries around a book so that when they're driving and they're in the middle of nowhere... you know where you can't get a decent radio station to save your life and you can't possibly listen to crackly salsa music any longer?  I mean what are you supposed to do?  Whip this thing out and make a quick origami vase of flowers while you drive?!  How do you even manage?!  What if you drive a stick shift?!  It's not like I felt bad enough about my usual origami skills. This book wants me to feel bad about the fact that I can't do origami while I drive!!!  That's just mean!  But then it got worse!

That's right!  It's not enough that I can't drive and fold paper.  Now I'm being taunted by the Grim Reaper of origami.  Oh wait, I'm sorry. It's Horrorgami!  Just wow, people!  I was starting to get some kind of complex and fast!  But the hits just kept coming!

Next I'm faced with a book telling me that I should handmake Halloween in its entirety!  People, I don't  hand make anything!  I look for things that look to be handmade and then do you know what I do?  I BUY THEM!  If I handmade a costume for my kids, they'd look like Charlie Brown dressed as a ghost with about 50 eye holes!  These are skills I just don't have!  I'm Queenly!  I'm awesome!  I'm not particularly crafty!!!  So now I feel bad not only for my origami skills but because I'm mass purchasing and entire holiday for my children!  I feel like I should be wearing a huge scarlet H on my chest!  (It stands for Halloween. I'll probably have to change letters for each holiday that I don't handmake.  Let me deal with this first one before I work on the rest of the alphabet.

But I shouldn't have been so touchy... yet.  I should have realized that the books were just getting started.  They were working up to something.  Do you know what it was?  

MIND CONTROL!  

That's right.  Mind control!  The next book tried to mess with my head by telling me that it wasn't even a book!  (There really is a K on the end of that title.  It doesn't actually say that it's not a Boo... even though that would go along with the Halloween theme... maybe they should consider a seasonal version of this particular thing that isn't a book despite looking a LOT like a book.)  Yes, apparently the books didn't want me to get too comfortable with my own senses.  They wanted me off balance.  They wanted me to question my own mind and perceptions.  And do you know what, dear readers and loyal subjects?  It worked!  I felt compelled to open it and find out what it was!  And this was what I found:

It didn't take a mind as sharp as the Queen's long at all to figure out what was going on here.  These books were on a mission!  They weren't innocent books making me feel bad about my origami and Halloween short comings. They were cult leaders!  They wanted me exposed to nothing but themselves.  And do you know why they wanted this?  Well I do!

They wanted to make me into their own puppet!  I swear it was like The Brain trying to take over the world every night with Pinky, only there was no Pinky anywhere around to provide comic relief!  (If you don't know Pinky and The Brain, I highly recommend looking it up on youtube or something because they ROCK!)  Yes, the next book tried to put me under its spell and make me do things!  EVIL THINGS!

That's right!  The book tried to tell me to wreck it!  I couldn't decide if wrecking it would open up some kind of lock that let out its inner zombie or if it was just masochistic.  Ultimately I figured it didn't matter.  I wasn't letting any book tell ME what to do!  It didn't matter if it's little friend was trying to tell me that a book wasn't a book... or a boo... whichever.  This book was pushy!  It was a bully!  And it wasn't going to get away with it!  I decided right then and there that I would fight back.  I let those books know who was boss!  I gathered them all up together and stacked them neatly behind another, larger book!  I hid those thing!  Yup!  I was all over this. I was saving other unsuspecting shoppers from low self esteem based on their origami skills.  I was saving them from a warped and more than slightly masochistic book.  I was saving them from any book telling them what to do.  I put it behind THIS book!...

Oh wait.  Now that I look at it... well poo.  I'm starting to think that all this shop sold were pushy books.  I guess I'm lucky.  I fled the craft section for the much more helpful cookbook section.  There I bought a lovely volume of recipes that I never plan on actually trying to make, but having the book around with its pretty pictures gave me the ego boost I needed.  I'll just leave it lying around and let everyone think that I made something from it.  Instead, I'll be at the grocery store trying to buy something "homemade."  I'll see all of you just as soon as I get back!