I know just how Winthrop Paroo felt every time I order something over the Internet to be shipped to me, and the Fed Ex or UPS or Airborne or some other package delivery truck turns into my street. Winthrop is the little boy in The Music Man who sings:
O ho the Wells Fargo wagon is a-comin' down the street,
Oh please let it be for me!
Now my street is a short street and a narrow one, with almost no traffic besides the cars of the people who live here. So delivery trucks are noticeable on it, and have to move slowly along it -- ratcheting up the tension something fierce, if I'm expecting a package.
This morning I did in fact get a package -- a box of books I had ordered from Daedalus Books, the great remainder house. Unpacking that box was a great pleasure, and I took my time over it, too, tasting them all with my eyes and hands, looking at the books all the way around -- not just at the jackets, but opening them up, seeing how the title page looked, examining the verso of the title to check the printing and publishing details, running over the table of contents if there was one, or leafing through the pages where illustration or graphic design held sway, checking for an index or other bibliographic apparatus.
Delicious, wonderful books! What a treat! The nice thing about books is that you can read them over and over -- I only buy books I'm pretty sure I'll want to read over and over, otherwise why not just borrow them from the library? -- and when you're done reading them, they are still there to give their delight, enlightenment, food for thought, or just pure pleasure over again in the future. You get to have your book and read it too.
9:02:12 AM 
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