Friday night, with malicious intent, I drove down the highway.

Friday night,  with malicious intent, I made a couple of pit stops along the way.

Friday night, with malicious intent, I cracked open a new book.

Tis a harrowing tale that brings us here. A tale of such frightening aspects like counting, and buying, and staying in on a Friday eve! Proceed with caution, if you dare to proceed at all.

After waking on Friday morn, I felt the urge to… correction… I felt strongly compelled (!) to count – yes COUNT – the number of books on my bookshelves. The tally: 303. But oh frightening part, the truly truly truly knee-shaking hair-raising turning-you-into-a-quivering-mass scary part is that I realized I needed more. More!

With malicious intent I counted and knew the number 303 was vastly too small. With malicious intent, I vowed to increase this number.

And so, with no compunction for those around me or for myself, on my way home that evening, I stopped at Half-Priced Books. I had the singular goal, the goal of filling in a gap in my collection. I needed Terry Pratchett‘s Small Gods. (You may have noticed the plethora of Pratchett quotes lately – this has been the result of this growing uncontrollable urge to re-read this very book.)

Alas, Half-Priced Books failed me on this occasion. They had precious few of Pratchett’s books, and Small Gods was not one of them. So I had to settle with the following:

Having been disappointed in my quest, I pressed on. Next on my barrage of book buying: Barnes (and his friend Noble). Surely a full priced book store would help me quench my lust for the printed word. “Surely!” I exclaimed as I fishtailed into my designated parking spot at the front of the lot (Summer’s Shadow had grasped the importance of my mission – she’s a good girl and how I love to hear her growl!).

Barnes quickly pointed me to the malicious intent section (which encompasses the entire store) and I managed to find not one, not two, but three (thank you Count, ah ah ah) books that I absolutely had to have:

And so when I arrived home, after feeding myself, and feeding Riley, (Summer’s Shadow wasn’t hungry), I proceeded to do something dangerous.

With malicious intent, I cracked opened a new book to feed my mind.

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