Mr. Zoom had told me about dooce's book "Things I Learned About My Dad" a while ago. I knew we'd be buying one when it came out.
So imagine my surprise today when checking into defective yeti, and seeing dooce's book on 4-29-08's entry. Turns out that yeti has an essay in her book. And of course I didn't see this post until today, 4-30.
I shot an e-mail off to Mr. Zoom with the subject line: "What you WILL be buying at lunch today." He made some snarky comment that he might be willing to share his Dooce book with me, since Yeti contributed and all. But I had to be nice.
And I was proud of him for holding something I wanted out of arm's reach like that. I ramped up the bitch hackles and proceeded to outline every reason he was not only going to buy the book, but he would be buying two copies.
Yes. Two copies, one household.
First of all, Mr. Zoom has a rain dance he does with books. It consists of him purchasing hard cover books only, taking the dust jackets off, and then throwing the dust jackets away. When I found out about this before we were married, I made him swear he would never ever ever do that to any of "my" books. Trust me, if you knew Mr. Zoom in person - you would know just how counter-Mr. Zoom this action OUGHT TO BE. He buys and applies protective covers and stickers for his phones. He buys and applies them to MY phone and Nintendo DS, when I wouldn't bother to do so for myself.
I'd rather share my lunch and dinner with strangers for a week than bin a book's dust cover.
Second of all, Mr. Zoom loves his things and takes very very very very very good care of them. I could never and would never borrow something from him that he loves, much less a book by one of his favorite bloggers. I know me. I'd accidentally bend a page or drop a pretzel in there - and Mr. Zoom would never sleep again. I know this sounds weird, considering he's willing to throw away the covers, but it's just part of the retardation dance we do. And everyone should know that while Mr. Zoom admits he's a bit of a perfectionist freak - he has never ever ever made me feel bad about damage to a thing of his. It's always an accident and I believe it's me who makes me feel bad, not him. He's always super gracious about things like that.
All the same, I'd rather let the coffee shop birds fly in my hair and make a nest than borrow anything from Mr. Zoom I know I could not return in better than perfect condition.
For those two reasons, I told him he had a choice. He could either buy me a copy at the same time he bought "his", or I'd go out on my own and get one. But I would not, under any circumstances, borrow his.
You would have thought he asked for a french fry from my plate.
He came back from lunch and personally brought me my very own copy of the book. And how lucky were we? We got the very last two copies from the store near our office. He said they had to go in the back just to find them, and their computer says they were the only store in that chain that even showed they had any left in Orange County.
Awesome. While I realize that my uber crazy might might have deprived another customer from getting their own copy of the book, I'm too happy that I won't have to worry about accidentally dropping Mr. Zoom's copy off a freeway overpass. Because as unlikely as that may sound to the rest of you out there - it is always a possibility in my world. And this is a book I really really really want to read.
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