Today I have no lectures or seminars (not far off an average day for an english student). So I have been reading or writing pretty much all day. But on days like today I like to find an excuse to dash into town (past excuses have included a desperate need to go to Bostons, and a sudden compulsion to walk to the top of the Debenhams building). For this reason, I was pleased to see that on the extra reading list for one of my lectures was a C.S. Lewis book (for the record, The Allegory of Love) Now I don't tend to pass up opportunities to read C.S. Lewis and call it study so I shot off to the city library to get out a copy. (I possibly didn't need to get there quite as fast as I did, because it is unlikely that anybody else in the entire city was quite as keen to read the book at that moment, as, to my shame, I was). I succeded in getting the book no problem. It was on my way home that I made my first big mistake. I decided, since I was feeling in quite a literary mood, to drop into Waterstones as I passed. My literary mood is a dangerous one. At first I just browsed. And then I had this vague thought that I'd go and look at the Shakespeare section. So I did. And I found a nice Wordsworth Classics complete works of Shakespeare for just £7. This struck me as a bargain. Never once did I stop and think 'oh, maybe I don't actually need a Complete Works of Shakespeare.' Instead I thought, well if I am going to get a Complete Works of Shakespeare, I may as well get a better edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare than the Wordsworth Classics one. And sat on the shelf was the Arden Complete Shakespeare, for what at the time I considered to be a fairly respectable price (somewhere, for the record, between £10 and £20). So I found myself walking, unbidden, to the cash desk clutching the Arden Complete Shakespeare. Why am I telling you this? Well, reader, just think. Five minutes before I had popped into Waterstones with no intention of buying anything. Now I was about to buy the Complete Works of Shakespeare. This is not an ideal way to live, especially when you are working to the sort of budget that I am.
But then I stood for a while at the desk and there was nobody there. I realised this was the moment. 'Walk out, Shervington', I told myself, 'walk out, and don't look back.' But my feet physically wouldn't move. Well, they might have done, but for some obsene and frankly worrying reason, I couldn't be bothered to move them. So I silently handed over my card to the man, and the deed was done.
Don't get me wrong, I am sure my Complete Works of Shakespeare will be very useful. But that's not the point.
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4 comments:
Man the amount of times I've done that...
I feels for ya Sherchenko!
Vinay
NUMBER of times, Vinay, not 'amount of times'. Honestly!
"But then I stood for a while at the desk and there was nobody there. I realised this was the moment. 'Walk out, Shervington', I told myself, 'walk out, and don't look back.'"
Havig read this a number of times, I can't help thinking that you made a correct decision in buying the book. As you were in one of your compulsive moods, I have no doubt that the above was what you were thinking. However it does sound to me like this would have been, to put no finer point on it, theft. Simply seeing that there was 'nobody there' does not mean that you should walk out. Either a) put the book back and then walk out, or b) buy the book.
I hope that you now feel a little better for purchasing the book. It seems to me the alternative would have been worse.
James
James, your wisdom on this issue, as on many things, is an inspiration.
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