What’s strange isn’t that a selection of women’s underwear showed up among the donations to next weekend’s Times Colonist book sale.
No, what’s strange is this wasn’t the first time it has happened.
Each year, one of the joys of the TC sale is seeing the oddities that emerge — like prizes from a Kinder Surprise — from the boxes of donated books.
Most of the found items are both predictable and understandable: love letters, postcards, money, passports, marijuana leaves, all slipped inside the covers and then forgotten. (My sister, who volunteers at a similar event in Kamloops, reports the discovery of an entire doughnut pressed inside a book. Eeeuuw.)
Sure enough, the sorting for this year’s TC sale has turned up the usual selection of currency (including Mexican pesos, South Korean won, French francs, a couple of crisp Canadian $1 bills and some German marks dating to 1914) and photos.
Sometimes, a photo will be so striking that we’ll publish it in the newspaper in the hope of finding the identity of the subject. Won’t do that with the picture that fell out of a children’s book this year, though; it’s an extreme close-up of someone’s naked bottom, the most frightening moon shot since Apollo 13. The message on the rear (of the photo) suggests it was taken by the subject’s cousin. Hands up if you would let your cousin get that close to your naked butt with (or without) a camera.
But I digress.
The real surprises are the larger items. How does a woman go about losing her underwear in a box of books? Perhaps it had to do with the Mexican beer that showed up in another carton this week.
As mentioned, this isn’t the first year women’s unmentionables have been donated. Previous discoveries have also included brass knuckles, a large fruit pie, an FBI fingerprint field kit and a Boy Scout uniform.
Among last year’s haul were binoculars, a postage scale and a hollowed-out book containing someone’s long-forgotten pot stash.
Frequent readers might like to know that none of us have had the guts to chuck out the little ribbon-wrapped ceramic urn of cremated cat ashes that showed up in 2008. It remains atop a Times Colonist filing cabinet, abandoned and ignored, just like Mike Duffy at the Senate spring potluck barbecue.
As fun as it is to mine the oddities among the donations, the real treasures are, of course, the books that will go on sale this weekend.
Here’s what you need to know:
The sale goes Saturday, April 30, and Sunday, May 1, at the Victoria Curling Club, 1952 Quadra St., from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days.
The books are cheap: hardcovers $3; softcovers $2; pocket books and children’s books $1. Payment is by cash, debit, MasterCard, Visa or American Express, but no cheques.
As was the case last year, the children’s book section is on the top floor. No strollers upstairs, please.
Bring a little bit of money and a little bit of patience. The sale usually starts off with a lineup around the block.
Wear comfy shoes, as you’ll be on a concrete floor. Some people like to bring their own carrier bags, while others prefer to pick up a cardboard box (or two, or three …) at the curling club.
Pay parking is available in the lot that serves the curling club and Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. There is also free parking along Quadra, but be aware that parking on some of the nearby side streets is for residents only. You can also take the No. 6 bus, which goes along Quadra.
Once the sale is over, representatives of schools and non-profit groups may help themselves to the remaining books, for free, from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. on Monday, May 2. No invitation required; just sign in at the curling club.
As always, the money raised at the sale will go to the Times Colonist Raise A Reader fund, which distributed more than $270,000 to literacy-related projects on Vancouver Island this year.
>> Click here to download the Times Colonist book sale map (PDF)
