New Bookshelves
I am looking at the invoice from our local Staples office supply store. $666.85 for five cherry bookshelves, 72” high, 36” wide. Delivered. By delivered, I mean right to the door, with help getting them in the building.
I now have five 130 lb boxes looming behind me in the hallway. Assembled, they did not come; there forebodes several hours of sweat and minor cursing.
I used to be able to command the involvement of a couple of teenage sons – I thought it would be good for them to learn how to put things together, to experience some of the details of the book business, to “chip in” from time to time. They are now both employed and working on college degrees. I am left to my own devices for the assembly of such things. I predict a flurry of inefficient activity and strewn wreckage.
When finished, however, I should be able to empty about 25 boxes of good material and get it shelved. I have recently taken to stacking and restacking boxes as I rummage through Stuff Uncatalogued searching for choice tidbits to sell. I started feeling guilty, because the books looked so forlorn, huddled together in crates, waiting for the light of day to shine upon them. Or, it could be that I spend too much time alone. I have not yet added a volleyball-cum-handprint to the office, but we do keep a cat here, albeit not named “Wilson.”
About 12 years ago, when setting up my first sales room for the walk-in trade, I made about 10 shelves. This was before going with books full-time, and I had a shop where I made kitchen cabinets as a subcontractor. A friend of mine and I slapped together 10 8-foot tall shelf units on a weekend. We did it as a cheap project, and it showed. I used birch for the front frames, and plywood for the rest of the stock. They didn’t hold up that well, and there was only one permanent shelf per unit, with the rest of the shelves balancing precariously on pegs. The peg-holes were not all that evenly drilled, and so we were left with wobbly shelves. After awhile, the weight of the books on the shelves would bow ever so slightly the side frames, letting the shelves slip down past the pegs. Crash, bang, ouch.
But they were cheap. No $666.85 for those suckers, no sir.
Time to get back to bookselling. I have a Staples bill to pay for.
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