One of our members who is always losing things (advanced years) lost a library book last week that he was engrossed in. It is called Die Laughing and is a biography of The Australian’s late cartoonist Bill Leak, who was also a finalist a dozen times in the Archibald Portrait Prize.
Our member’s spouse (also a member) had gathered a pile of bags of clothes and odds and sods for the local Vinnies. The pair were bound for the local swimming/exercise pool and the male member tossed his library book into the boot alongside the female member’s pile of Vinnie’s donations.
A day or two later he began searching for his library book to no avail, with spouse also searching the house in a mystified way. Neither remembered the Vinnies’ drop-off.
By the weekend he was turning the house upside down in search of the book. Finally she had the thought, “Perhaps it got itself mixed up with the donations to Vinnies?”
“You mean you mixed it up!”
“No, you must have put it on top of one bag and the car’s vibrations slowly shook it down inside the bag.”
“Well I’d better re-visit Vinnies and hunt for it there.”
However, he needed his 2pm grandpa nap and lay down to enjoy it. But he got anxious about the book and after 20 minutes he sprang from under the doona, jumped in the car and soon after was at the rear door of Vinnies amid donations piled there ceiling high. It seemed a needle in haystack job.
He went through the junk and rubble section to the shop to the used book section. A staffer was re-stocking it, and had a fistful of books priced with stickers and ready to insert in the shelves. Buyers were hovering around to pounce on anything worth buying. Member looked at those books in the staffer’s hand and recognised among them his very target, “Die Laughing – Biography of Bill Leak”. He stopped the staffer putting it on the shelf and pointed out the non-cancelled library sticker.
“Hey that’s a book that got wrongly donated after falling by chance into a bag of old clothes,” the member explained diplomatically. The timing was so miraculous that member got the staffer to pose for a picture for Bearbrass.
Our member’s spouse (also a member) had gathered a pile of bags of clothes and odds and sods for the local Vinnies. The pair were bound for the local swimming/exercise pool and the male member tossed his library book into the boot alongside the female member’s pile of Vinnie’s donations.
A day or two later he began searching for his library book to no avail, with spouse also searching the house in a mystified way. Neither remembered the Vinnies’ drop-off.
By the weekend he was turning the house upside down in search of the book. Finally she had the thought, “Perhaps it got itself mixed up with the donations to Vinnies?”
“You mean you mixed it up!”
“No, you must have put it on top of one bag and the car’s vibrations slowly shook it down inside the bag.”
“Well I’d better re-visit Vinnies and hunt for it there.”
However, he needed his 2pm grandpa nap and lay down to enjoy it. But he got anxious about the book and after 20 minutes he sprang from under the doona, jumped in the car and soon after was at the rear door of Vinnies amid donations piled there ceiling high. It seemed a needle in haystack job.
He went through the junk and rubble section to the shop to the used book section. A staffer was re-stocking it, and had a fistful of books priced with stickers and ready to insert in the shelves. Buyers were hovering around to pounce on anything worth buying. Member looked at those books in the staffer’s hand and recognised among them his very target, “Die Laughing – Biography of Bill Leak”. He stopped the staffer putting it on the shelf and pointed out the non-cancelled library sticker.
“Hey that’s a book that got wrongly donated after falling by chance into a bag of old clothes,” the member explained diplomatically. The timing was so miraculous that member got the staffer to pose for a picture for Bearbrass.