The Little Things

Sometimes it gets to the point when one just wants to cry out, in the immortal words of Dr Evil, 'Throw me a frickin' bone here!'.
After being kicked one too many times when already very much down, bruised and bloodily pulpy from the blows, the little things that bring so much pleasure ordinarily take on almost mystically regenerating properties.
So when I learned that my Big Box of Books were going to arrive that day, I felt instantly brighter. There is nothing like new books. I am all for ancient, musty smelling and yellowing tomes, but there is something so beautifully clean and wholesome and uplifting about glossy, brand new, pristine books. They are nothing short of exciting.
And the fact that they would be inevitably arriving in a brown delivery box only served to add to the charm of it all- something so very 'brown paper package tied up with string, these are a few of my favourite things' about the whole postal procedure.

I put off going in the shower for hours so as not to be otherwise engaged when the doorbell rang, announcing the books. I just wasn't in the frame of mind to cope with the disappointment of them being dragged away due to nobody being in. So I sacrificed my cleanliness and tolerated the smell in order to be there when the bell tolled. I was busy practicing my swanky gait when it finally did, getting used to my absurdly high new red patent leather heels around the house, but leapt three feet in the air as I heard the man arrive, leaving my shoes resolutely stationary on the ground as I did so, like in the cartoons.
He was a big, bald, beefy chap. Immediately the box was thrust into my arms, then he passed me the dinky signing contraption on top of this. Now this seemed silly. He was a strapping man of Mitchell brothers-muscle. I am a scrawny waif like creature, often mistaken for an urchin boy of distinctly Dickensian pedigree. So to have to sign this screen with that impractical little pencil/poking thing whilst lumbered with a box weighing over 5 kilos was a little bit rich. But it barely ruffled a feather, being, as I was, so excited and preoccupied with the treasure within the cardboard chest.

Wielding scissors manically, I sliced through the sellotape and beheld the innards. I beamed.