This Brilliant Book

Today I'm going through all of my material possessions and throwing out/donating as much as I can muster. I'm a sentimental pack rat, so most of my belongings are random pieces of crap of little to no monetary value that means something to me or make me laugh. Never is this aspect of my identity clearer than when I'm cutting down on the stuff I'm accumulated. Though I'm not your typical American in my consumerism habits, I am a major participant in secondhand economy. I buy used goods frequently, partially because I'm cheap, and partially because it is environmentally advantageous to reuse existing items rather than devote resources to making new ones. It's all crap anyway.

I have a penchant for buying used books for 10 cents because they're funny -- you've seen me make posts like this in the past. Too often, I bring them home, and while amusing, they just add to the clutter of my life.

So now, I retire the following books back to secondhand stores so that others with similar senses of humor may enjoy them.

How devout Christians teach their kids about sex.

The illustrations inside are killer. Jesus oversees kids' journeys through puberty. I'm pretty sure that this kind of book leads to this next one...

A guide to teenage pregnancy. While I made it out of those years unscathed, I should have passed it off to a student in need.

Some of my students have actually read this book, or pretended to anyway. When I used to do silent reading, I had to make some books available because they couldn't be relied on to bring their own. I included this Psychic Guide to Health and Happiness as a joke, and would often like to ask students about what they learned after reading it. It didn't seem to phase them, even though it was clearly the work of a nut job. Perhaps this shouldn't surprise me.

And finally, my favorite, Love Sucks. I've never even attempted to read the book; I only purchased it based upon the post-it note that someone attached to the front cover.

"This brilliant book on the discard pile?" I loved that little piece of sarcasm so much that I had to have it. Six years later, it still makes me laugh. But my bookshelf is overflowing, so can I really justify keeping it just for an anonymous jab?

Out with the old, in with the new. Or new old things in my case.