The other day I was lying around at home reading a book. About page 73, I discovered a single grain of uncooked rice wedged in between the pages. On further inspection the grain turned out to be arborio rice. This sent my mind off on a bit of a wander/wonder (it wasn’t a particularly gripping book).
How did the rice get there? Was there risotto for tea? Had the cook thrown the rice wildly around the kitchen while reading the book? (It wasn’t even a cookbook). Or perhaps the rice was destined for something other than dinner? Beanie baby stuffing? Pasta collage? Suburban genetically-engineered paddy-field development?
And then, quite serendipitously for my musings, my son arrived waving a couple of plane tickets he’d found tucked into his library book. Someone, apparently, had taken one of our books on a holiday to Rarotonga.
So many times I’ve found things tucked away between the pages – mostly the surprises are pleasant, or at least not unpleasant: pretty bookmarks, cards saying, “I louve yeou Mumm” in purple crayon, exotic travel documents, even interesting shopping lists. It really adds a whole other dimension to whatever book it is, illustrating just how varied and diverse our readers are, as well as what an exciting life the books themselves lead (I once had to deal with a customer who’d dropped his novel off the side of a boat while swimming with sharks in Fiji).
Of course, balancing these happy finds is the odd discovery I’d have preferred NOT to make (close your eyes now if you’re squeamish): the completely squashed flat dead bird in a magazine, for example, and other less-than-seemly finds.
Anyone out there top my stories? What’s the best/worst/most valuable/ oddest thing YOU have ever discovered?
