In my mission statement of sorts, I’ve mentioned how I work in a few “cheat days” into every year. They consist of two Friends of the Library sales, tent day sales at my LCS (usually FCBD and Thanksgiving weekend) and the Baltimore Comic-Con. Well, the first set of those recently passed.

I only started going to the Friends of the Library Sale last year. It has been an annual thing for a very long time around here and has grown to the point where they use the old library location–a big store in a shopping center that was probably a supermarket or other retail store at one point–and set up tons of tables of books, records, DVDs, puzzles, and games. As far as the tent sales at my LCS are concerned, those are quarter-bin sales and I’ve been doing those as long as they have had them. And you’ve all heard my Baltimore Comic-Con podcast episodes.

So when it comes to these cheat days, I have a couple of rules. First, I only make one rip and there is no going back to see what I missed. Second, I only carry cash and if I have picked up more than I have money for, I figure out what to put back. Third, while I do try to adhere to things like want lists, I’m okay with buying anything as long as I know I’m going to definitely read or watch it at some point. And finally, nothing is sacred; if I do not like the book, I’ll just go ahead and re-donate it (although to a Little Free Library or something … I feel kind of bad donating a book back to the library) or trash it (especially if it’s mildewed).

This year, I found myself being a little restrained on both ends, especialy the library sale. I had a little bit of a mission because my sister had sent me a list of books she was looking for and I had a list of books I wanted to see if I could get. I found one book for my sister and two others for myself, but then dove head first into the tables to see what else was there and walked away with not as much. Maybe I wasn’t just grabbing for the sake of grabbing and being more discerning because I already had so many books I was making my way through? Or maybe it’s because I knocked an item off my “50 Things to Do By 50” list the week prior because I shopped at the Green Valley Book Fair?

Oh yeah, that was another definite cheat. This is one of those places that advertises on TV all the time and it’s a book closeout place, selling books that had been remaindered at a very deep discount. I’d been wanting to go there for years and had the chance in early April because Brett was visiting James Madison University that day, which was about 10-15 minutes away. The building was in a big barn and much like the library sale, held tables and tables of books. And since I’d gotten there right around the time they’d opened, I was one of only a few people there, so I could weave my way through the novels, then drive down the country backroads that led back to US 33 and my way home to Charlottesville. If it hadn’t been so overcast, it would have been quite bucolic.

Anyway, the piles continue to grow, as do the piles of comics, because I spent $21 at the quarter bin sale in addition to what I grabbed for FCBD. That one was more full of curiosity than interest or fulfilling want lists, even though I snagged a couple of issues of Arak that were not in my collection. And to be honest, the quarter bin sales have the same appeal as FCBD because of the way you can just grab random stuff that you would have never paid full price for. A samurai series from 1980s’ Eclipse Comics? Sure. Random horror or war books? Absolutely? Turok: Dinosaur Hunter #1? Well, that’s just in the quarter bin because it’s required by law.

I keep telling myself that the key thing here is to go back to the good habits once you’ve “cheated” with the bad. It’s never been my strength because I’ve always been the type to let things fall apart for weeks before going on a course-correct. I guess we’ll see what happens, but in the meantime, there was something fun about flipping through bins and scouting tables.