I was literally here, at my desk, about to write a scathing blog about the treatment I received at (and from) the people at the Half Price Books store near my house when it dawned on me that I am in control of my emotions. I don't have to be mean; I don't have to be rude. I don't have to complain. I don't have to lower myself to the standards of those people who get really pissy and then go off half-cocked on the internet, thus making a complete spectacle of themselves. I can just be informative, tell my side, and push through. Are you ready?
My friend Jeannie came over yesterday, and we cleaned out so much clutter from my room and from my master bathroom that I felt as if my spirits were lifted over a dozen times higher than usual. That's saying something because I'm usually pretty happy! I found myself carrying on the same activities today as she and I had been obliged to carry out, and I decided to clean out the bookshelves in my hallway and my living room. I'm an author; I read. I collected way (way) too many books along the way. I gave about 200 of them away last year, and this year, today, I found another 43 that didn't need to be sitting around my house.
I took the books to Half Price Books. I thought I could sell them to the store, get a store credit, maybe pick out a few LPs, and finish the chore. That didn't happen. My daughter helped me take the books into the store, and we walked around while the manager and/or assistant in the returns and resell section went over my books. You trust these people not to take a book or two, keep them or try to shaft you. That's not what happened. I was called back to the counter, and I was offered an amount of money for the 43 books I had to sell. Actually, that's not a true statement. I was offered an amount of money for about 25 books, and the rest they had decided they couldn't use, but they would take them as a donation if I didn't want to take them back with me. The amount of money that was offered for books totaling more than $400 was $3.26. I am NOT kidding you. It was insulting. EVEN if you offer .50 per book it's $21.50.
I decided to take all of the books back and donate them to Goodwill. There they can be sold for $2-5, and they can be enjoyed by folks who otherwise couldn't have afforded the prices that Half Price Books would have slapped onto the used books; some were Harry Potter books, others were professional training manuals such as how to get your SPHR and how to trade on the stock market. The trading book was a Dummies series and still sells on Amazon used for about $14.00, so yeah, the caliber of books I brought in was not bad. I had about six murder mystery types from people like John Grisham; don't tell me $3.26 is a fair assessment for 43 books. Six were recipe books, and four of them were in the pile they said they couldn't find a buyer for. No worries, I'll give them to the Goodwill. Someone will want them.
I decided to go through one of the recipe books again before I gave it to Goodwill because it was one with pictures! I love pictures. This was a simple recipe for kids and/or young people who haven't had much experience in the kitchen. Something caught my eye, and I decided to memorize the recipe and mimic it tomorrow morning! Here we go. I'm going to make cinnamon cream cheese rolls! You take flat white bread and cut off the ends. You roll the bread FLAT, and spread butter, and cream cheese in the middle. You dip the whole thing in butter, or you can brush it on, but you roll it in cinnamon sugar and bake it for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. DONE. What fun. Don't tell me people in their right minds wouldn't want to know that. You want to know that! I know you do. You're welcome.
I'm not saying I think you should boycott your local Half Price Books store; nothing like that, but you can talk to the manager and let them know that they need to work on that policy of reselling. To tell a customer we won't pay you for these books, but we'll put them out on the shelves to sell them, and keep 100% of the profit if you want to donate them, is silly. Well, it's a bad practice if you ask me. I won't go back into that store now. I won't. I'll go somewhere else, anywhere, really. I have a Kindle, so I don't buy books anymore that I have to hold. I can get my cards and my LPs at other shops. I have NO reason to darken their door again. If I did want to hold a book in my hands again, I might sneak in and buy the Waverley novel set that I saw. But no, I have the entire collection on my Kindle. I'm good.
Can't wait for tomorrow to get here now.
Photo Credit: Pinterest
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