Don't let it be said that you didn't do the least you could do

I've been on a mission Chez Stoll to rid our home of clutter. This is an arduous task and not for the faint hearted. My hope is that eventually, our house will only have stuff we actually use and/or like.

I had filled 2 gift bags and 2 paper grocery sacks full of books and clothes. Thursday is errand day, and I was headed to Main Street, so I figured I'd drop a bag of clothes off at the collection bins and bring a bag of books to the used bookstore. I also had to pick up the girls' add-a-pearl necklaces.

For those of you who haven't met me, I am really short. I stand just barely 5 feet tall in shoes. Alec is a few inches taller than me - I don't think it bothers him being short because he can do most things. It does bother me because most things intended for adults are geared toward people who are an average of 5'4". I never can reach anything on the upper shelves at stores. I can't stow my own carry-on luggage on an airplane. It's very annoying.

The clothing bins were no different. I had to jump (with Lin in the snugli) to lower the shelf down, and then sort of throw the bag up until it caught on the shelf. I grabbed the bag of books, which was just heavy enough to irritate my elbow a bit, and walked the block to the bookstore. There were 2 people who worked there, a middle-aged man who was sitting on a leather chair with a cat on his lap, and a middle-aged woman with very short red hair with her back to me. They argued for about 15 seconds about who was going to help me, but neither of them moved. The man said, "Ask Michael to help her then." At this point, a young man in his 20s walked around them and grabbed the bag from me and began sorting through my books.

"We don't do cash for books." he said, without looking at me. "Just store credit."

"Ok." I said.

He wrote a slip. Moved one pile off the desk onto the floor behind him, and the other he piled back into my bag. He placed the slip on top. "Seven fifty."

"Beg pardon?"

"Seven-fifty for the books we can sell. These," he lifted the bag handle, "are in poor condition or too old." He didn't wait for a response, he just walked away.

I grabbed the bag and left. There were a couple of novels I was pretty sure we bought from a used bookstore in Lee, Massachusetts, where we spent a summer working for an opera company in a house without a TV, so that wasn't hugely disappointing. There were 2 new condition books though. Apparently no one cares that Men are from Mars and Norton can keep his travels to himself.