by Annie Spence
But the thing is, that was, like, almost a decade ago. I’m married now. I’ve got a kid. I don’t know how much almost-old-boyfriend stuff I should have lying around. The other day my son pulled you off of the shelf and gnawed on your corners and, to be honest, I don’t know where you’ve been.
We had some laughs, but, in the end, we don’t belong together. Let’s just leave it at that. I’m sending you back to the address written in pen on your endpapers—some guy named Mel in Austin—and I’m not looking back.
Don’t Call Me,
ATHLETICS AND SPORTS—WINTER SPORTS—ICE SKATING—Montgomery, Richard
—Sweeney, D. B.
Dear The Ice-Skater’s Bible, 1982 edition,
The only reason I’m keeping you is out of a fierce loyalty to the award-winning film The Cutting Edge.1
Tooooeeee Pick,
CULTURE AND INSTITUTIONS—SEXUALITY—Keller, Wendy
—Mind, Open
—Legs, Closed
Dear Cult of the Born-Again Virgin: How Single Women Can Reclaim Their Sexual Power,
Don’t take this the wrong way. You’re going to take this the wrong way, aren’t you? We took you out of circulation at the library.
This isn’t about the women dressed in togas, staring out at the ocean on your cover. And it’s not that I disagree with reclaiming your sexual power or the whole “Keep Your Knees Together—Change Your Life” philosophy. I mean, I totally disagree with you that depriving yourself of sex when you like sex will help you land a better man or “serve humanity” or “restore a sense of dignity and elegance” to your life. But I’m a librarian and I don’t base our collection on my own opinions. There are other reasons for your dismissal.
The thing is, you’re bringin’ a lot of baggage. Some of your names and locations have been changed to ensure anonymity, but your dedication page gave the first and last name of the author’s ex-husband (who was thanked for breaking said author’s heart). You seem just the tiniest slivery-est bit—bitter. And your advice on how not to dress slutty comes off a little harsh. Plus, it’s hard for me to pull off a Princess Diana or Helen Hunt vibe; and you don’t give any other examples of nonslutty women.
Let’s focus on the positive here. You offer some delightful quizzes. Before we discarded you, someone who had checked you out wrote in you, and I got a big tickle reading their quiz responses. In the passage where you ask the reader to “check off traits you secretly like about yourself,”1 this reader noted that she has a strong immune system, buys only quality items, and loves her exercise program. Sadly, there was no check mark next to “I am logical.”
In the “Love Style” quiz, pencil marks indicate that this closed-knee wannabe actually managed equally high scores for Narcissistic Lover and Self-Sacrificing Lover:
1. “I like to keep my partner just a little bit insecure about how much I care.” True
2. “I recognize that to be truly loving often means sacrificing my wishes and goals.” True
3. “I am friends with almost all my old lovers.” False
(I scored Codependent Lover, BTW. Because I’m friends with some of my old boyfriends and like my lover to keep in touch throughout the day.)
I hope it doesn’t make you angry that I brought you home. You haven’t been home with anyone in a looooooong time. Sorry! Inappropriate. I save you (just like you’re saving yourself—gah! I’ll stop, I promise) for this thing I do every year where I have my girlfriends over to do crafts, but we mostly end up eating snacks and drinking too much. I think you would love it. I do a dramatic reading of some of your passages and we all do your quizzes. Sometimes, we even drink enough to scare up some togas. Some girl talk is just what you need to “Stop the Insanity,” which is a Susan Powter quote from your book.
Keep in Touch (if you know whatamean),
JUVENILE FICTION—Howe, James
—Vampire Bunnies, Used
Dear Bunnicula,
Like everything else that the youngest of five children receives, you were a hand-me-down. Two of my three older sisters read you, then my big brother. Eventually, one of them, probably when bribed with the promise of a brand-new book from the Scholastic catalog (which I NEVER fucking got), threw you at my face while they whizzed by on their new bike in their new Kmart jeans, and I was grateful.
I took such pride in you that I marked you with my “Viola Swamp Is Watching You” stamp on your inside cover. And, as you can tell from the blobby schmear on your title page, I slammed you shut before the ink even had time to dry. Because you scared the bejesus out of me.
First, you’re about a vampire bunny. Second, your other main characters are a dog and a cat, and I was terrified of both animals when I was a child (in addition to having no earthly possessions, I was attacked by a tabby as a toddler and nearly sacrificed my eye—I was basically feral). So your cover was off-putting, to say the least, with terrifying pets and that vampire bunny’s red eyes and fangs. Then the editor’s note claiming that you were a true story? It was too much for my tender soul. I shoved you under my bed, an offering to the alligators and at-large Unsolved Mysteries suspects I knew for a fact to be living there, and went back to my Sideways Stories from Wayside School.
It wasn’t until I was an adult that I found you again at my parents’ house and realized I had finally gained the courage to open you back up. It took me twenty-two years, Bunnicula, but I am ready now. I’m ready for us.
Of course, if anyone had told me, which of course they wouldn’t have because they were too busy going to concerts I wasn’t allowed at and buying candy necklaces that only came in four-packs, that the only thing your vampire bunny sucks is juice from fruits and vegetables, NOT BLOOD FROM YOUNG GIRLS, I could have given you a whirl when I was at the appropriate reading level. I’m sorry it took me so long to come around. But I’m here now. And that counts for something, right? Let’s do this. Your cat character is declawed right?
Love Your Final Owner,
FICTION—Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
—Room, Trapped In
—Small Talk, Better Than
Dear The Yellow Wallpaper,
FRIDAY AFTERNOON
I get the kitsch of putting you in an upstairs B and B room with yellow wallpaper, but, geez, I wonder if your owners know what you’re about, or if they think you’re an antique decorating book. You don’t scream “vacation read.” You scream “Lemme out!” Ha!
FRIDAY EVENING
Apparently, people that stay at bed-and-breakfasts go to bed at eight o’clock. Michael doesn’t want to make noise and wake Lois and Don in the next room. I don’t want to leave and risk common-area small talk. So we’re going to read you to each other.
LATER FRIDAY EVENING
Welp, turns out reading you doesn’t make me feel better about being in a confined area. Guess I better turn in. Rest always cures what ails you, right Yellow? Good old rest cure.
SATURDAY MORNING
Breakfast was served. Turns out we both hate strata. And it’s raining. This place is a bust, but we paid for the whole weekend. Does it smell funny in here to you? I’m gonna take a nap.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON
Didn’t I leave you on the nightstand? What are you doing over here by the door? Are you trying to tell me something? The husband says it’s my imagination, which I say sounds a bit familiar, don’t you think?
SATURDAY EVENING
Cocktail hour in the common area. Liberate me now!
SUNDAY MORNING
Michael came in and found me crawling around on the floor. I was looking for my earring, I swear! Anyway, we’re blowing this Popsicle stand and you’re coming with. I’m replacing you with an Anita Shreve novel and getting the hell out of here.
Let’s Boogie,
HEALTH AND HYGIENE—Food—Excess Of
—Self Respect, Get Some
Dear Better Homes and Gardens Dieting for One,
Though you sit among my Martha Stewarts and kitschy old cookbooks now, I found yo
u in the free-book bin. Because the relative of whoever died and left you in their house looked at you and thought, “Here’s another cookbook from the 1980s with disgusting food photography and an excessive addition of fruit to meat dishes.”
I’m going to give it to you straight: that person was not wrong.
Your title is one strategic ellipsis away from a Katherine Heigl rom-com about a woman who falls in love with her produce man (Paul Rudd) on her quest to reinvent herself (aka lose weight), even though she was originally gunning for her Bikram yoga instructor (Channing Tatum), except we already know from the trailer that she farted in class and blew her chances—pun intended. “Thanks for the dietary fiber, Paul Rudd! Now I’ll never be the hot yoga lady at my class reunion!” Spoiler: Paul thinks she’s already beautiful and he’s going to show her how versatile beets can be in a menu. Roll credits.
But it’s not just your title. It’s not just the shriveled silver sticker clinging to your cover (“$5.95! A hit of a gift!”). It’s the whole way you present yourself. You devote a two-page spread to a photo of a lady in a floppy-bowed blouse answering her phone on her lunch break even though she’s attempting to enjoy her skim-milk-and-shrimp pocket. Is that the face of Dieting for One? Probably. Yes. Even so, the newer diet books only show pictures of extremely trim people, and they’re usually not shown eating because they are laughing so joyfully at their fitness that they can’t get the fork in their mouths. That’s what you’re competing with.
Have some self-respect! You have a lot going for you. You may not be the first to call your collection of recipes “de-light-ful” (oh, light, I get it). But, damn, your first recipe is a STEAK dinner. Own that! Take pride in your cheese-spread section, “Spread the Good News.” It’s one of a kind! Today’s diet books have abolished cheese and carbs. But you embrace them! So what if your Polynesian Ham Patty looks dis-gust-ing. Your Reuben Sizzler sounds amazeballs. You have excellent instructions on how to start a sprout garden, and you were touting whole foods in 1984 when everyone else was like, “Whatever, just slap some margarine on it. Margarine will save us!!!”
You keep telling your readers they deserve delicious food. Aren’t you deserving as well? Of a chance to teach more folks about the low-calorie benefits of liver and how to stuff damn near everything into a homemade cream puff? Yes. I believe you are. But—no. No one else in my peer group does. They laughed you right out of the room. They liked my screenplay idea, though.
The proverbial fat lady has sung, and she’s lamenting your spicy beef cups. I didn’t think your self-esteem could take the blow of the Free Box. And I want to try your lemon cheesecake recipe (though to say I’m skeptical of a cake that uses cottage cheese would be an understatement). Looks like I’m the “one” in your For One. At your suggestion, I’ll lay out a single place setting with my best dishes and really take the time to savor you.
Welcome Home!
YOUNG ADULT—FICTION—Blume, Judy
—Penis
Dear Forever,
I’ve just discovered you right where you belong. In a secret stash of old journals and love letters and summer camp name tags from boys who promised to write (I know you know how that feels).
I wonder, in the forty-plus years you’ve been around, how many secret places have you been? Shoved in back of a dresser drawer, a forewarning to the neighboring Days of the Week underwear. Tucked under a twin-bed mattress. Camouflaged behind homework in the pocket of a Lisa Frank binder. Nobody had the guts to ask their parents to buy you, yet somehow everyone has read you. Around the world, females from twelve to fifty still snicker to themselves when they hear the name Ralph. You are womanhood’s worst kept secret—a passed note recited in front of the class.
When I first saw you in 1996, I had so many questions. Like, what’s a fondue party? Why couldn’t I have a little sister that embroidered my jeans for me? When are we going to get to the dirty par—Ho! There we go!
I don’t remember who gave you to me—you were probably one of my older sisters’ or I stole you from the senior citizen center I volunteered at, which is how I got most of my raunchy reads. I do remember that I read you in one sitting, cross-legged on the floor, completely consumed with Kath and Michael’s romance. How thrilling that a boy would like Kath so much that he bought her a gold locket! He told her she was delicious when they kissed! Did my hair smell as good as Kath’s? And how could I get it to smell better? And, after that, how could I get boys to smell it?
I was angry with Kath’s parents—that flabby librarian mom (you thrice described her as such) and her old-fashioned dad—for not believing in their daughter’s pledged love. They said “forever”! They signed every letter that way. Until the letters stopped. Until the parents’ evil plan to separate Kath and Michael worked, and Tennis Camp Theo came into the picture. That was a goddamn plot twist to beat the band.
In terms of the horny stuff, you delivered! I took mental notes for my future: buy bikini underwear; plan possible weekend ski trips to Vail around your period; for reasons not specified, only do it on rugs; find out what the clap is. Then I officially joined the club of People That Have Read Forever and could feel free to continuously make inside jokes in front of people who hadn’t read you yet. It was fabulous.
So looking at you now, I was hoping for a little bit of That Old Feeling. First love: so romantic. Except—it’s gone. The feeling. I can’t bring it up. And in its place, I just feel Old.
I now find Michael’s character sooooooo annoying! He throws snowballs at Kath, calls her a tease, and makes comments about her body every five seconds. He wears an aftershave called “Mustache,” for Christ’s sake, which I now know for a fact he totally did put on his genitals, no matter what he claimed. Half the time he can’t get it up. The other half of the time he can’t, you know, contain himself. In short, he is a perfectly accurate description of a seventeen-year-old boy. Now Theo, on the other hand, has an actual mustache, asks Kath how she’s feeling, and dances close without crude comments. He’s a grown-up. And, shit, now I’m one, too.
If you hadn’t guessed already, Forever, I am now Flabby Librarian Mom. And upon closer reading: of course Kath’s folks are going to send their newly sexually active daughter away from her twerpy boyfriend after he got drunk and barfed at their house on his eighteenth birthday! They’re no fools. Kath, though, my girlhood role model, now sounds awfully righteous when she talks “forever” to them. How could someone who was once the pinnacle of maturity for me now sound so childish? You’re tricky, Forever.
This is to say nothing of the fact that, in my first reading, I completely blocked out all of your side plots: Sybil gets teen pregnant? Artie attempts suicide? There’s a detailed cervical exam and discussion of safe sex? News to me. If your pages didn’t say “Ralph” on them, I’ve no memory of their content.
So kudos to you, Forever, for staying true to your audience. But I’m not one of them anymore. Will I ever be able to access those blissfully ignorant shivers of first crushes and jean jammin’? Is what the original Flabby Librarian Mom said true? Can you never go back to holding hands?
To continue the tradition, I’m going to highlight your dirty parts in pink, and hide you in a place where a new teen girl can discover you and keep you like a secret. Then I’m going to go upstairs and ask my husband to smell my hair.
Not Forever,
(Which I think was your whole point, right?)
FILM—Beauty and the Beast
—Imaginary Libraries
—Bookdiggers
Dear Magnificent Library Featured in Beauty and the Beast Movie,
Belle is my favorite Disney heroine. For starters, she’s the only “princess” who spends the majority of the movie with her hair in a dowdy ponytail because she could care less. She’s just trying to finish her book. In my opinion, the premise of the film is: people constantly interrupt Belle while she’s tryna read.
She finally marries the Beast because she’s a total bookdigger and wisely realizes
that the castle is big enough for her to hide in one wing, reading in silence and ordering that sniveling Cogsworth to bring her snacks and tell Beast she’s got period cramps and is not to be disturbed. At the end of the movie, she’s like, “This twirling around shit can end anytime. You guys know where the door is? I’ve got a booklist to start.”
But the main reason she’s my favorite is you, Library. You’re so golden and glorious, towering over everyone with your endless rows of books. To be Belle for a day! The closest I get is the opening shift at the public library, which, on the right morning, can vaguely resemble the first scene in the movie, where Belle is walking into her provincial town.
At first it’s all sunshine and birds chirping. I’ve had my coffee and I’m thinking about making a fun “If You Like Junot Diaz…” bookmark. But then, like Belle, I keep getting stopped by charming townspeople. Except instead of singing about how pretty but alarmingly literate I am, they’re yelling at me because Joel Osteen’s Become a Better You is checked out, or asking me to describe how to write a cursive “q” over the phone, or threatening to strangle another charming townsperson with their backpack straps (main reasons for violent threats between patrons at the public library are: Someone’s Been on the Computer Too Long, Political Arguments, Disagreements About Whether Pit Bulls Are Sweet Lil Critters or Face-Eating Monsters—in that order).
You actually might be part of the reason I took this job. Because of you, I thought spending time in libraries was all wheelie ladders and silent, sustained reading time. And though I’ve since discovered that library patrons can be “mean, coarse, and unrefined,” just as often they are “dear and so unsure.”