It's A Cold, Cold, World...

Well, last week was a busy one, what with the store full of people complaining about their missing textbooks and all. I kid; there actually weren't too many hassles. I did, however, discover a cultural artifact!

Many of our textbooks are actually second-hand, bought by the bookstore from wholesale book sellers. I was in the process of re-shelving one of these (it was a hardback copy of A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee, not that that's important), when I happened to flip open the front cover. Therein, I discovered a loving inscription that made it quite clear that the book had originally been given as a gift, and a Valentine's Day gift at that. The romanticist in me does not want to think too hard about how it got from "thoughtful gift for significant other" to "used wholesale textbook." Sigh.