The Internal Debate

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Dutiful me: You have money which your kind Mama gave you for your birthday to buy shoes, and there is a pair you like. Buy them.

Book me: But there is that Dorothy Lyons I have not read on buy-it-now on ebay for less.

Dutiful me: But the shoes are pretty and you haven't had a new pair in a while.

Book me: The old shoes will mend.

Dutiful me: No they won't.

Book me: Summer is coming. I don't need shoes, and I have sandals.

Dutiful me: (struggling now) Yes. You do have sandals. Aha! It has started raining. You live in England. It rains. You need shoes.

Book me: You don't understand. I haven't read that Dorothy Lyons, and it is a very good price. It is not ex library. It has a dustjacket. There may not be another one along for ages.

Dutiful me: and what about your mother? Don't you think you should buy the things she's expecting you to?

Book me: She is the one who got me into books in the first place. Reading Wind in the Willows as a bedtime story is asking for trouble. How surprised can she be?

Dutiful me: You have done this before, haven't you?

Book me: Ahem.

Dutiful me: There is a limit to how many places you can go to wearing wellies.

Book me: There is?

Dutiful me: Yes.

Book me: But if I buy the book I would still have enough left over to buy some of those really cheap shoes in the factory shop......

Dutiful me: Which will last about six seconds. We've been here before.

Book me: But if I buy the book I would still have enough left over to get the old shoes mended.

Dutiful me: THE SHOES WON'T MEND!

Book me: Yes they will. And summer's coming, so I won't be wearing the repair out, and there's this really good cobbler....

Dutiful me: No cobbler is that good.

Book me: But I haven't read that book, and the last one of hers I read was really good and I'm sure that one will be just as good....

Dutiful me: Let's compromise. Let's not spend the money on anything for a while.

Book me: OK. If we wait a few weeks the shop will have sold out of that style, and you know how difficult it is to find shoes I like, and it will definitely be sandal wearing weather, and then.... there could be any amount of books out there that I haven't read. Easter the Showjumper! Crab the Roan! And there's nearly all the Patsey Grays...

Comments

Juxtabook said…
On, just give in Jane and buy the book. I'll lend you my 4 year old and she'll glitter and paint your wellies so you can wear them for best!
24 April 2008 at 20:01
Susan in Boston said…
ROFL......I have that exact argument with myself all the time. Well, booklovers have ALWAYS had that argument...

"When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes" - Erasmus (who was born in 1466)

Buy the book!
25 April 2008 at 02:01
Jane Badger said…
Juxtabook - your 4 year old and my 12 year old sound like sisters under the skin. My wellies are plain black. Hers have florescent pink spots.

Susan - Erasmus had the right idea. I did Erasmus for Latin O Level, but strangely, not that useful bit (can't remember, I'm ashamed to say, exactly what I did do...)
25 April 2008 at 19:53
Susan in Boston said…
Had a similar argument with myself this weekend over a jacket vs book....the book won, as my book me had one argument your book me didn't...women's clothing sales in the US are absolutely abyssmal...that jacket will be on sale next month! :-)

So...you never said...which of your alter egos won?
28 April 2008 at 02:30
Jane Badger said…
At the moment we're still in compromise mode! Yesterday I was tending towards the shoes, but a full weekend's gardening has left me so shattered all I am fit for is lying somewhere quiet with a book....
28 April 2008 at 02:39
Juliet said…
Brilliant. I loved this post - so like the inside of my head, too!
29 April 2008 at 21:18
Jane Badger said…
Thank you Juliet! I can now feel the debate slipping over towards trying a new American author I haven't come across before...
30 April 2008 at 18:50
Juliet said…
Jane - reading your blog and clicking some of the links has done strange things to me. I've just skipped to the corner shop and back singing the theme tunes to 'On White Horses' and 'Follyfoot'. This is very worrying indeed. I hadn't thought about pony things for decades, but now see what you've done!
1 May 2008 at 21:01
Jane Badger said…
Juliet - sorry. It is catching. I'd better not tell you then, that you can get the White Horses theme tune as a ring tone from Horse and Hound. I won't. It wouldn't be fair.
2 May 2008 at 08:40
Juliet said…
Jane - no you shouldn't have told me that. And no it wasn't fair at all. And now I'm off to Google Horse and Hound . . .

(You are turning out to be an *even worse* influence than I'd thought at first!! ;-) )
2 May 2008 at 09:04
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