The burger or the book?

John at EclectEcon brings up a question prompted by a Salon item: is a $6 book worth more than a $6 hamburger? In my comment to his post, I mentioned that I've worked in both fast food and book selling, and I believe this Cary Tennis is missing a few basic facts.

Not that I mentioned them in the comments, since it was brought up by John himself, but the difference between a book and a burger is profound to somebody whose very life depends upon his having food in the next day. And the life that hamburger may save could, in the long run, be the life of the next Jonas Salk or George Washington or Michelangelo Buonarotti. Who knows?

Plus, the book could very well be -- for six buckaroos -- one of those wholly disposable pieces of pulp.

OTOH, a book can have more than one life. One can resell the book, once one is finished with it, or trade it for another, at one of the many used book stores nationwide. Generally, the same can not be said for a bio-processed bit of meat and bread. When you're done with the burger, only a handful of companies can do anything with it. Mostly, it goes to the public works.

I have other uses for my own collection of books. I can't afford membership to a fitness club, so I use big boxes of books as weights, to keep my upper body strength up, and have been known to put straps on smaller boxes o'books to build up what's left of my knees...

And, then there's the MacGyver approach: duct tape the b*stards together and make furniture out of them, if they're really crummy books. Having worked the bookstore biz for more than a decade, I accumulated enough really bad paperback novels to build the base for a king-sized bed, two comfy chairs, and a dining table to seat twelve, were I so inclined.

Instead, I'm just stacking the boxes against the walls, to insulate my house against the cold. Those romance serials are particularly useful for their uniformity. Still, it does rather shrink the floor space.

I probably should consider borrowing more from the library, so I don't collapse my house into the basement...



If anybody's interested, I'd gladly trade you Tuesday for a hamburger today. It had better be a darned good hamburger, nonetheless -- no Wimpy's junk. I expect nothing less than the sort prepared from this.