BOOK BUYBACK AT POWELL’S BEAVERTON

A book buyback trip to Powell’s Beaverton store usually hurts my brain.

This time was no exception.

Ouch, my head.

Out of four bankers boxes full of books this is the shot of what they bought back.

Am I buying the wrong books?

I’ve got a load of books, a library of my own.

And my wife. She’s a big reader like her momma.

My mother in law could read, watch tv, and knit a cowl-neck sweater all at the same time.

Just a big show off, right?

I haven’t read every book I’ve bought, but I keep buying them.

Recently, two new ones cost almost $60; the payout on the buyback of four boxes of books?

$35.65. And that’s in-store credit. No cash.

That was my plan from the start, in-store credit.

 

Me: Thank you. This would have come in handy my last time here when two books rang up $60.

Clerk: Have a good day.

 

What Powell’s Beaverton Didn’t Take

Apparently I read crap, the same crap I buy at Powell’s, and that’s the deal.

I know it, they know it, and I need to write the sort of crap they sell there.

 

Me: That book was the winner of the Oregon Book Award for fiction last year.

Clerk: I haven’t read it. I read stories set in Portland.

Me: Last year’s winner was The Librarianist.

Clerk: I did read that. Patrick DeWitt.

Me: I figured since it’s set in NW Portland.

 

Clerk: Would you like to take these home with you, or should I send them along from here.

Me: Thanks, go ahead and send them along. By the way, have you ever found anything weird in the pages of books bought back?

Clerk: Yes, I have. Over the years I’ve found money. I’d never use money as a bookmark.

Me: Me neither. It’s been a hundred bucks in singles?

Clerk: It’s been thousands. I keep track. And no one else I’ve asked has ever found money. It’s weird. Money comes to me.

Me: You don’t say.

 

PS:

If you clerk in a bookstore and find a hundred dollar bill in the pages of a buyback book, do you:

A: Give it back to person bringing the books in?

B: Report it to the accountant/cashier to deal with. Or?

C: I’ve never found money in a book.

 

PSS:

I also took in a box of old National Geographic’s. Powell’s Beaverton doesn’t take those.

My mother in law could read Nat Geo, watch The Race Around The World, and crochet a doily at the same time.

I was so excited from the buyback I forgot to take them with me.

Go ahead and send them along from there.