Sunday, August 25, 2013

My annual rant against Half Price Books


Or is it "Get PLAYED"?

Yesterday I took a full load of used books and magazines to Half Price Books for resale.  I had to wheel 'em in a cart to my car, then from my car into the store.  Check in, wait until they called my name, then they gave me the news:

CONGRATULATIONS!  WE'RE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE WE CAN OFFER YOU THE WHOPPING SUM OF $5.50  

Big f__king whoop!

"We're kinda overstocked right now."  (How come every time they see me walking in the door they're suddenly "overstocked"?)

Every year I do this, every year they insult me, every year I swear I'll never go back.  I told K this was the absolute last time I'll ever darken their door.  Of course she launched into her goody-two-shoes "it's not about the money but keeping things out of the landfill" spiel.

OK, fine.  Next time I'll just run 'em through one of those tree limb shredders and turn 'em into mulch.  See, I can be an environmentalist, too.  Or I'll take them to the doctor's office.  His magazines are really old.*


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I'm guessing we still have about another month of summer left before we begin to see the first signs of autumn (in Texas).  Miserable as it still is, I can at least see the light at the end of the tunnel.  And I have football season to take my mind off the lingering heat.  Yes, football is a wonderful thing.   ;)

S

* Or the library.  I think they give their old ones away for free.



20 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Most of mine are on my iPad / Kindle, but a few aren't. And some of the wierdo stuff K reads Kindle wouldn't touch with a 10' pole. Apparently Half Price Books won't either.

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  2. A friendS husband says the same thing every year "never again". But like me they go back. Oh, well.

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  3. A friendS husband says the same thing every year "never again". But like me they go back. Oh, well.

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  4. I give my excess books to a charity used book sale and take a tax write off. I feel better about that than selling them that cheep to half price books.

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    Replies
    1. Good idea. Next year I'll follow your example.

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  5. We can donate them to our Library for their big annual sale. It makes a LOT of money for the library.

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    Replies
    1. Yep, we did the Half Price Books routine a couple of weeks ago and got a whopping $12.50 for two heavy tote bags of paperbacks. Then it was down to Braums where we went crazy. Easy come, easy go.

      Football is indeed upon us. Lunch next week?

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    2. Yep, we did the Half Price Books routine a couple of weeks ago and got a whopping $12.50 for two heavy tote bags of paperbacks. Then it was down to Braums where we went crazy. Easy come, easy go.

      Football is indeed upon us. Lunch next week?

      Delete
  6. I remember my sister and I went to the used bookstore once with a bunch of books. We got $2. I never bothered with it again and just dropped them at the library instead. Or you could always try EBay or Amazon or Half.com or something like that.

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  7. Robert, sure...lunch sounds good. I'll call and set us up.

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  8. What Joan said...donate them to the library. Ours has a number of shelves where you can buy used books for a dollar or two. But that, of course, is not your goal, right?

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    Replies
    1. I was just hoping for a fair price so I could buy something else. But before I let them rob me again I'll just give them away. It's the principle.

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  9. Would you believe that I just now returned from our local bookstore where I went to sell a box of books, and they paid me exactly $5.50?

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  10. We took a big load of books to Half-Priced Books when we moved - we figured anything we got was better than trying to figure out where to put them in our new house. And it's a good thing we didn't have high expectations!

    Usually I try to foist my books off onto friends. "No, no I don't need it back - just give it to someone else!" :)

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    Replies
    1. You might try after-hours library return boxes. They're unmanned so they can't say no. (You've gotta learn to think sneaky, Bug. ;)

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  11. I always donate mine to Lifeline ... mind you, I buy most of them from Lifeline too.

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  12. donate them to the library. our library has an annual book sale to raise money and the ones they don't want on the shelves, they sell.

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