Where am I again? 
I admit it. I’m a book hoarder. When my sister volunteered to help move my books I was glad. Looks like I only got about half my books.
Sis? If you weren’t going to do it right, why even ask?
I’m more bemused than angry.
I agree with you there (and the rest of the post).
The only thing I would disagree with it the “complex” part of it. For many people complex means pretty much anything more complicated than a cave man grunting about could get across idea wise.
Remember 50 percent of people are below average intelligence. And even for those above the 50 percent mark, there is a 95 percent chance they are fricking dumb asses regarding some sort of “problem solving” set of problems.
Which, in my WAG, means you got about a 1 in 5 chance overall of somebody not fucking something up they don’t do regularly and have no skin in the game themselves.
You are on my lawn and you better get the frack off of it right now.
Well, why did you put the frack on it in the first place???
Because that is where the ole ball and chain told me to put it. Hey, it is meatloaf night and I ain’t messing up a good thing here.
This all has less to do with this rant in itself and more to do just with the kind of parents I have. They’re both military and they like an impossible clean and not cluttered (I.E empty). My mom will make her bed every morning, without fail and not only that, it must be made in order to pass the “Dime Test”. This means if someone were to come along randomly and drop a dime onto the bed, it must bounce. If it does not, that means you did not make your bed and, thus, you have a messy bed and, from that, a messy house.
They’re the only parents in the world that I know who don’t make any crumbs at all when they eat, even if it’s something really crummy, like a donut.
You keep food out on the counter? Any food at all? Snacks, fruit, bread? If you do, then you have a messy house, in her opinion. All food must be put away into the fridge or cupboards. It’s a constant fight when she visits, because she’s always putting things away that I like out on the counter and then I go into the cupboards and get them all out again after she’s gone. I have already tried saying “Uh, this is MY house now, can you not put that away? I like/want it out on the counter” and I’m ignored. But like I said, it’s all beside the point…I’m just telling you this to hopefully paint a better picture so you can understand how she is and why she would have the “ew, books, so …cluttery…please get rid of them” attitude.
Anyway, because I have four shelves dedicated to books (something they don’t see the point in wasting time on when one could be cleaning or working), they see it as a waste of space.
Someone upwards in this thread asked if they’re usually like “Have you gotten rid of all of those books yet?” each week and that isn’t too far from the truth, actually.
I pay for my own apartment.
I thought it was pretty clear. I didn’t know I’d have to ask or remind them more than twice otherwise I would have.
Well, let’s put it this way, the garage sale they had ended at 4pm on Saturday and I called them at 8am on Sunday, to ask for the books back, and they were gone by then.
Here are all the books I owned (this was taken months ago, so it shows books I no longer have due to the give away):
1, 2, 3, 4 (new books I bought that were to be incorporated into the shelf, which you can see a bit of in photo 3, at the very bottom)
That’s it.
Do you seriously think I have a book hoarding problem?
“Hey, we’re having a garage sale and could use more things. You have anything you could give us that might sell?”
“Not that I can think of…”
“What about all those books you have? Maybe one or two of them will sell.”
“Yeah, but I don’t really want to sell any of my books.”
“Come on, you’ve read most of them all already…it would really be a big help, please, Chris?”
thinking most probably won’t sell anyway “Okay…but I’d like to have back any that don’t sell”
Doesn’t seem that weird of a conversation to me, but that may be because it’s the norm for me. : p
I thought fracking was bad for the environment.
Clearly the OP needs to keep a box of decoy books in case this happens again. Just fill a box with random volumes and when parents nag the OP to clear out some old books and help out with their garage sale, “reluctantly donate” the box, while making a big deal about how you hate to let them go and want them back if they don’t sell while actually not caring if you ever see those books again.
Parents are satisfied their nagging accomplished something, while wanted books remain untouched. Meantime, if the lost books are really wanted that badly, just go to Goodwill and buy them back. Better that than harboring resentment and, frankly, inviting SDMB ridicule which I freely admit I feel tempted to resort to, myself.
No more resentment held, I’m pretty much over it. I just wanted to answer some of those questions that were left over.
As for anyone wanting to give ridicule, do your worst if you want.
Got it. You live in Arizona, right? Do you realize that Maine is a very nice state?
My kids don’t want to live in the same town as we do, and we don’t want to live in the same town they do. Much better that way.
And you’re not a book hoarder. I’m not even a book hoarder and I have 50x more books than you do.
I hate to be a dick in your time of sorrow but some of those are magazines.
Yes, Voyager has got it right in every way.
You need to move far far away from the parents. And take all your books.
Thread winner!
That’s when you cut off your parents go total No Contact with them
That might be an overreaction, but if you ever want to kill them, bring them to visit me. My questionable housekeeping skills will kill them stone dead, guaranteed.
Does it help any to think that, by giving your books to Goodwill, they might have helped to get them into the hands of other people who would read and enjoy them?
I’d say the bulk of your “collection” is thrashed mass-market copies of Mary Higgins Clark, Jeffery Deaver, and Dean Koontz. Goodwill will probably sell you your whole lot back for a buck. And honestly, that’s a fair price. You can’t give those kinds of books away.
If I walked into someone’s apartment and they had a Playboy, twenty Mary Higgins Clark books, and the complete Lil Abner on their shelves, I’d probably just back out again slowly.
That’s a thought. It wouldn’t help me, because I don’t keep books that I don’t want to read and enjoy, even if it’s for a second or a third or a seventh time. I can’t see any reason to pass them off to someone else that might enjoy them when I know that I will enjoy them again. If I’ve given them away, then I have to replace them when I want to read them again. Not good, and not always possible.
Cite?