Sunday, January 15, 2006

The Will is Weak

Or, it's strong, but only until temptation comes along.

Today I succumbed to the siren call of the Borders gift card. It started out so innocently. I am missing a book in my Martha Grimes series, so I thought I would go see if the Borders near me had it. I had looked at a couple of other bookstores, but not this one yet. I knew it was dangerous, but I thought I could handle it. Of course, things started falling apart before I was even fully in the store.

In the alcove between the two sets of doors, they have set up a bunch of bargain books. I was just going to breeze through, but I saw an interesting looking yoga dvd and book set. I have been wanting to try yoga, but I don't want to go take a class, so I veered over to check it out. This is not a problem, I said to myself. It's not even a book I will need to add to my list. It's a reference book, not yet another book-to-be-read. But then, naturally, there was a sign declaring Buy 3 Bargain Books, Get the 4th FREE! So, I had to pick out 3 more, didn't I?

Once inside the doors, I headed straight for the mystery section to see if they had what I actually came to get. No such luck. They did, however, have a book at the end of the series that I had not yet purchased, so that was added to my stack.

At this point, I needed to sit down and look over my choices. I can't go to the bookstore without sitting down and reading parts of the books, making sure I really want them, and just enjoying the bookstore atmosphere. On my way to the back of the bookstore, however, I passed the table of Buy 3 for the Price of 2! trade paperbacks. I picked up three of those and continued on my way. One last pickup--a daytimer for mom's, marked down to only $4!--and I was looking at the stack.

Now, here the story gets a little better. I started out with the Day-Timer. It was pretty intimidating, let me tell you. The directions for use recommended setting three hours aside to get the thing set up. Hmm. That sounded like something that was more likely to produce guilt than organization. I set it aside and started in on the books. After looking through the trade paperbacks, all of which (Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, edited by Dave Eggers, and Size 12 is Not Fat, by Meg Cabot) looked excellent, and moving the Martha Grimes book to the buy pile, I turned to my stack of bargain books.

And then came my minor victory. I realized that I only really wanted the yoga dvd. The world would not come to an end if I didn't buy 3 to get the 4th FREE! And anyway, I was already getting Size 12 is Not Fat free, so I wasn't completely forgoing free books. So, I put the 3 bargain books back, along with the intimidating organizer.

Yay me!

Of course, I still bought 5 books, none of which were the one I went to the bookstore expressly to get, but hey, I did call it a minor victory.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This weekend, I was a good boy - one book, on CD...

I've continued my literary-slumming, and picked up the second book in the Michael Stackpole X-Wing series.

I also bought "The Pretenders Greatest Hits".

Anonymous said...

This weekend, I was a good boy - one book, one CD...

I've continued my literary-slumming, and picked up the second book in the Michael Stackpole X-Wing series.

I also bought "The Pretenders Greatest Hits".