Books Books Books

Are there any readers out there? You know who you are, you know what you are like. Books are entertaining. They take you through peaks and valleys of emotions, allow you to live another life for a while. The books you buy, you take care of. As a rule, right? Right.

Ok, so.. if you know me you know how important my books are to me. I don't collect many, 4 authors in all I think. But they have an extensive list so I have quite a bit.
I don't freely hand/lend them out. I did once and they were ALL returned plus a little gift included in the return. ( She was so appreciative she gave me a lovely gift certificate to Chapters. Lovely lovely lady )

Last year, I lent out an entire series of books by one author to someone I had known for many years. I figured this person respected me enough to take care of them. Right? Wrong. Again, damn it. To top it off I had a devil of a time getting them back, I was just glad when I did. I tucked the box into the back of the closet and promptly forgot about them. 
Till now.
I've had to pack up all the books for the upcoming move. ( hopefully this will be the last time for a while and I can get a library unit to shelve them? hint hint my handsome hubby ;-)  )
I separated the authors into three boxes and went through the series of the ones I had lent out. Dunno why, just had a feeling.
Four of them missing, six duplicates :-(  WTF?!!  I was choked but yet once AGAIN, my fault, my bad. I should of known better. But I worked very hard at collecting them all. Minimum wage, long hours and sacrifices at the book store. Thanks.So.Much. At the time I knew of one book that had been destroyed but I'd been reassured it was replaced. Ok fine, great. No problem. Um problem.. it wasn't replaced, it was among the missing.

As a rule I don't borrow things, the above being a fine example why. But you may be SURE the few times I do, I borrow because I HAVE to and for a VERY short amount of time. I worry too much about damaging or losing the borrowed item.

I hunted down the missing titles in the book stores, bought them AGAIN and that, my friends, is the LAST time I will lend them out.
The six duplicates? It was my initial reaction to trash them but I am a lover of books and couldn't bring myself to throw them away. I gave them to my daughter, she'll exchange them in a used bookstore for something she hasn't read yet.
:-)

and the beat goes on...