Walk Up Booking

Today I was innocently sitting by my computer, playing games and thinking about various things. Okay, maybe none of that was truly innocent, but you get the idea. My roommate was in his room, also innocently playing games on his computer. I'm thinking he was actually even being innocent at the time. The cats were in various states of napping. Cats are never innocent.

I heard footsteps on the porch and someone wiggle my door handle. I froze and did my best not to breath. The freezing and the not breathing were an attempt to go unnoticed by whatever person was at the door. This is a pretty useless tactic, as my door is glass and you can see me from inside. I have no idea why I always do this but I always do. Maybe I'm thinking the people outside will think the people who live here bought some life-sized fat woman statue.

The person didn't knock though. They just wiggled the handle again and walked away. I stayed frozen, wondering what had just happened. Clementine has put on winter pounds, but not enough to sound like a fully grown human in stompy boots.  My roommate came out of his bedroom, looking as confused as I was. He opened the door to see what was going on and discovered a book had been left for us.

Said book was one of those religious publications of the crazytown variety. You know, the kind printed in some tiny font, on brown paper, set in two columns, and just full of the ravings of paranoid crazy people. It's pure propaganda, written with a kind of fevered madness . . . and not well-written either.

Here's the problem though. I am not the kind of person who just wants to trash a book. It seems morally wrong to do so. But I will never read this and no one I know will ever read this. What do I do with it? I don't want to keep it. I have this THING where I only want things in my house that I use. Now this random person in heavy boots has showed up, unasked for, and fucked up my system.

This is worse than giving someone your opinion when they didn't want it. I can ignore your opinion. I can't ignore a physical something you gave me, especially when it is presented in bookform. Now I have a damned responsibility to do SOMETHING with the book. Hint . . .that something will NOT be reading it.

If you, as a religious organization, have money to toss around, why not give to to a cause that will actually benefit people? Why not give it to the food bank or help someone pay their bills? Why not buy some stuff for the police or help the old people? Why waste your money on books no one will read? How is that doing any good at all? How is that really promoting your message at all?

In the meantime, whichever one of my friends pisses me off the most will get that book as a gift this year.