Way Too Exciting

We got woken up last night by someone knocking around in the half-finished house next door. At 3am it definitely wasn’t a workman! So we called the cops but whoever it was zipped off just before they got there. Did I mention it was pouring rain? Four soggy policemen and one damp dog. I kinda felt sorry for them. They checked things out and saw the open back door and muddy footprints where the guy had jumped off the unfinished back porch. But they didn't catch him, darn it. Today the front door is still open and there’s a flood happening inside where a piece of copper pipe was ripped out and the water is flowing through and out the basement door. Probably filling up the whole basement as well. And we can’t contact the builder! He never left a phone number with us or our neighbour on the other side so if the water causes big problems, too bad. Unfortunately the open door is an invitation to every thief to just waltz on in and steal more pipe. Apparently they get money for it to pay for their next drug fix. Lovely. William the Contractor is going to wish he had sprung for a protective temporary fence around the property now, I betcha. And I’m getting tired of trying to figure out if I should call the police or not every time somebody shows up and starts removing building materials. I might just start minding my own business. Sure was hard to get back to sleep after that excitement.

Dotty has suggested in the comments that I take my excess books to a used bookstore. Good idea except that I don’t drive and so would need someone to pick them up or to bring me and the books to the store. White Dwarf is a great little independent bookstore but it’s too far away from me to easily access. However there’s a secondhand book shop quite close to me which is a possibility but they don’t specialize in fantasy/sci-fi. They do give either money or credit which is good. Although I can walk there, I still can’t carry all the books at once so I’d have to do it in increments. There’s also another shop somewhat farther away that has quite a good secondhand fantasy/sci-fi collection but I don’t know what their policies are. I'd have to go find out since their website seems to be non-functional right now.

As for other methods, I’m just too darn lazy to go through all the hassle of selling online. Though I just looked at Craigslist and there’s a set of 7 of the Andre Norton books (that I’m keeping) for sale for $200! Who knew old sci-fi books from the 1960’s could be worth that kind of money? Or maybe it’s only wishful thinking on the part of the seller. Hard to tell. Meanwhile, I still have to let my kids go through the stash first before I unload it. They get first dibs. All the books I want to keep are now inventoried and put away. Whew! That was a big job that took me a whole week to finish up.