Sunday, October 02, 2005

On the sidewalks adjacent to America

My girlfriend and I visited a local branch of one of the two big and meaty mega-chain bookstores yesterday, and it wasn’t Borders. Exiting her car, we traversed the parking lot and reached the bookstore building. We noticed scores of books in carts on the sidewalk adjacent to the main doorway. We browsed.

Nobody had bought these books for regular prices inside, so these books in carts outside the store yesterday were on sale. Some of the books were stupid, the kind of trash you’d expect to see alongside the grocery store checkout line. But most of the books were downright thought-provoking. Many contributed original thought to old ideas.

I realized why nobody wanted them. They were too deep, too intelligent for Joe Full-Size SUV, his wife, and two point five children. So these books were discounted and outside, and, in these ways, reminded me of homeless people, who have trouble selling themselves in a society that forces us to pimp ourselves to earn our way.

These books in carts on the sidewalk adjacent to the big and meaty mega-chain bookstore’s doorway were the books nobody wants. They had no place to go but outside, where the homeless reside every day in carts on the sidewalks adjacent to America.