Elderly Mr. Klondike sat at his disproportionately sized oak desk and withdrew a large pear from one of its drawers. "I hope this pear will be delicious," he thought to himself. He then bit into the tender, juicy fruit, and slowly chewed the piece of it he held in his mouth. It was a very tasty pear.


Peter knew what he wanted in life, and in situations where it was reasonably attainable, he got it. Often, he wanted several different types of pies. This was because the pies reminded him of his attractive lovers.


With a tremendous scream, Detective Blanco jumped off of the cliff and clear into the air above the ocean. In the minute in which he fell through the briney air, he wistfully recalled his days as a youthful ensign on the U.S.S. Tulsa. He shouldn't have recalled these days, however, as sooner than he thought, he needed to invest all of his energies in avoiding the craggy granite boulders below him. It was too late, though, and the drug pirates got away.


While strolling through the park, Stacey found a book of matches sitting unattended at the end of a tube slide. "I wonder if these are any good," she said to herself, flipping open the matchbook. "Nope, these are wet." Sadly, the matches were wet, and she threw the book onto the sand below. Two days later, she bought some matches from a local Walgreens.


The crew of the nuclear submarine had worked very hard for their veterans' retirement benefits until they all died underwater when an intake valve collapsed.


In her retirement, Edith Wortstein decided to take up model airplane and helicopter flying as a time consuming hobby. She had worked her entire life as a seamstress, which she viewed as a perfectly noble profession, and decided that she needed an activity which would make full use of her agile and able hands. Soon, though, she decided that this pastime was far too labor intensive and tiring, and thusly decided to take up jigsaw puzzles of Alpine landscapes and floral motifs. Her grandchildren then forgot about her and listened to music instead.


Once upon a time, a plump fig fell inexplicably and miraculously from the sky somewhere above Leeds. Nobody noticed it, however, as it was night, and it was a fig.


Sarah was worried that her return to the grocery store of the youth would bring back too many sad memories. In her mind's eye, she saw herself suddenly arrested in the middle of the cereal aisle with a severe bout of nostalgic disillusionment. She pictured many mothers struggling to pass her on the way to the rice Chex. As she walked through the sliding glass doors, however, she decided she was being far too silly, and hey, that's an amazing price for a box of Cheez-Its.


Richard came from a lower-middle class home, and was tremendously excited when his overworked parents bought him a brand new iPod mini for his birthday right before spring break. He enjoyed his new treasure vigorously in the week of free time he had from his studies, uploading every single CD he could find in his house (and some he checked out from the library) onto it. A whole new world seemed to reveal itself to him. When he got back to school, he proudly showed off his amazing gadget to his classmates. They didn't care at all about his fucking iPod, poverty idiot. In front of them, Richard fought an immense urge to sob.


Speedy never understood his nickname. In college, he made no mention of its existance, and effectively stopped its usage.


No, Karen was certainly not in love with her friend Sean, and yes, it did very much strain the friendship when he admitted to it. "He's just...horny," she said privately to her friends. After that, Sean vehemently denied that he was currently in love with her whenever she or anyone else would force the issue into conversation. These were always clearly lies, though, and in the privacy of his bedroom, Sean drew unrealistic plans for a suicide apparatus to be worn around the head. This machine never came into existance however, as in fifty years, he died slowly of cancer.


The child brought the keychain to the counter and asked what the price was. "3.50," said the cashier. The child payed the requisite amount in quarters, and the cashier found it very hard to force a smile as she slowly counted the change. She had been having a pretty crummy day, the child decided. Truly, she hadn't.


When Billy went to his friends' houses, the only thing they would ever do was play video games. For a while, that was perfectly fine, but Billy never understood why his friendships only went that far, and nobody did anything cooler or actually talked about interesting things like the popular kids probably did. One year, he decided that he didn't want his friends as friends, and didn't go to any of their birthday parties. He rarely spoke with them after that, and was lonely a lot.

Nobody ever knew poor Yogurt, but his name alone did his life little justice when listed in the obituaries.


George Evans thought his neighbors were bizarre, but not bizarre enough to try to train a mouse to sing like castrati! Fairly enough, they never did that.

So recently, we've decided that we will be selling this house next summer. This choice was kind of the inevitable result of lots of different factors, principally that this is a pretty big house for my dad to manage on his own (we're only kinda managing it between the two of us), and our financial situation is kinda lousy.

However, my dad's lived in this house for fifty years. He's amassed quite a history with it, just as anyone would if they'd have lived in a house for that long. Over this period of time, he's accumulated many very interesting things, bethem semi-obscure musical instruments, the components to a darkroom, an original cover to some (as of yet) unnamed pulp novel, chemicals from a car cleaning franchise, or x-billion various art supplies. That has been cool; my brother and I have always loved access to this wonderful crap, and it's been quite a boon to our creativity and curiousity.

But!

This trait has a definate negative side, namely that Dad doesn't always like to throw things away. To him, Swiss Miss tins are viable containers for two inch pencils that he bought in 1963. This eight megahertz computer from 1990 with Windows 3.1 is perfectly usable. Somebody will read Bay-of-Pigs-era National Geographics. Jello doesn't goddamn expire.

Additionally, no book is worth not owning.

Ideologically, I understand that. It's great to have lots and lots of books around, because I love books, and books are amazing things, but there's certainly a powerful argument for some discrimination here. Yes, it's cool to have this insane bookshelf in the living room with thousands upon thousands of books, but really; with a close eye, some of these...just, ...good god.

This, as you can see, is a two-hundred page book that details how to write your own horoscope.

I don't know why Dad would have bought this. It's crap. It's 100 pages of star charts, and another 100 pages of incoherent pseudo-scientific justfication. And it's all very very serious.

I don't know why we have these books.

Furthermore, I've always been kinda torn about them. On one side, they take up a lot of space and are crappy. On the other, some are so crappy that they're awesome. With this moving thing happening, they're just a big liability, of course, but part of me really hates to see some go.

This book, for example, can't be that bad. Yes, it's probably a fairly dumb mystery, and yes, it has an awul Christmascarolbutdeadly! title, and yeah, that's a skeleton santa, but that doesn't entirely mean it's without merit. It's probably pretty cool and full of suspense and intrigue that took a fair amount of time for Charlotte MacLeod to come up with.

The reindeer and jingle bells are awesome last-minute illustrative flourishes, I may add.

Edgar Cayce was an alleged psychic healer and clairvoyant in the early 20th century. He made predictions about maps to Atlantis being found under the Great Sphinx before the year 2000. So I kinda hate him a little; that doesn't mean this book is not without redeeming qualities. The nautilus shell, the Rhoda-logo-effect face, and the difficult-to-understand-perspective rainbow pyramid on the cloud, though: pretty tight.

Anyone who covers such a difficult topic as the origin and destiny of man should be cheered for their effort in that confusing and unclear field.

If you can fix scoliosis like that without killing yourself (or perhaps a nearby squirrel), more power to you and your (finally!) attractive back. Additionally, the inexplicable underwear? Damn hot.

Here's the inside:

This is why books are necessary to treat back pain. You learn things that you would never intuitively guess. Regularly stretching your back!, for example!: helps it.

SHIT!! IT'S AUTOGRAPHED!!

As a child, I was always just a little suspicious of things like these. The whole 5-a-day program always invaded our elementary school and threw tons of informative pamphlets and recipe books at us. This is one of them.

First, I applaude the attempt here. Fruits and vegetables are notoriously difficult to anthropomorphize. Boxes of cereal, milk cartons: these work out well because faces are easily translatable onto a large, flat surface. Broccoli? With that, you have to toy with many variables: does the face go on the stalk or fuzzy dealy; should I make part of the fuzzy dealy into arms or have separate, non-broccoli arms; should I make it as big and grandious as the anthropomorphized pineapple, &c. It's a challenge that I know far too well.

However, I'm a little frustrated by some of the thoughtlessness in here.

Amber Orange is either stipping or showing a very blatant act of compulsive self-destruction here. The tounge sticking out white she looks at her own juicy innards is kinda unsettling. Also, I can't ever peel an orange that well. She seems to know what she's doing, dammit.

Courtney Cauliflower is just confusing because she is so ugly, ha ha.

Look at the back!

Thank GOD Dole made this, and not some bullshit Chiquita or Geisha. As most of you know, I only trust companies that once owned Hawaii.

He is Greek and a pagan. She's disillusioned. The back cover goes into more detail, telling of his offers to give her "a villa in the sun, a car, and an ever increasing bank account." It's a difficult situation for her, as you can see. Name's Tina.

I don't know who would have read this in my family.

Finally, I'm a bit sad about this last one. Of these, it's the only one I'm certain we aren't getting rid of, because...well,

It's Encyclopedia Brown. He knew so much that people just started calling him that, you see, and he had the ability to divine the answer to any mystery, no case too small. Idaville's Super Sleuth in Sneakers. I grew up on him, though my brother was certainly a bigger follower than I ever was. Legend has it that when he was four, he got inspired and set up his own detective service, replete with a sign in his bedroom window that mimicked Encyclopedia's almost verbatim. He cried when nobody came and took the sign down on the first day.

This is on this page mostly because I think the books are pretty awesome. He solved cases about teeth that get stolen from cookie jars with a process that made full use of impossibly intricate webs of logic. He also always knew a lot more kids than I ever did. I didn't understand that part.

Look at that picture. It must be awfully satisfying to work on a case and point your finger like that after you solve it.

Hat looks a little small, though.

If anyone wants any of these, save the Encyclopedia Brown one, you should comment. We'll see what happens.