Nasty books.

The other week when I was working at the library, someone mentioned that they had had a whole cart of smoke-y books, and when I asked what was up with that, they said that someone who must have been a chainsmoker had returned a lot of books, and that they were all discolored and just reeked.

A few days later when I was back in at the library, then, I had a huge cart that took forever to shelve because of all the shifting that I had to do, and then when I finally got to a better section, I suddenly noticed that the books were all yellowed and there was a slight smell of cigarette smoke in the air, and I realized all of a sudden that I must have had the rest of the books from the chainsmoker.

As I was shelving, it was just crazy.  One book was from a magazine series, and its spine had totally become a different, nastier color than the mild lavender spines of the other books it was sitting between.

Labels had changed color, too, from a mild off-white, to a yellow that looked like darker pee.

What horrible personal remnants to leave behind you, just sitting there out in the library tucked away among the other books.

But, I bet the person who had those books checked out is weird and somehow a lot of fun.

They were all in Chinese or Japanese language or something, just characters on the spine, no English apart from a few letters on the call number label.