or: Five Hours, Leftover Currency and a Bookstore – What Could Possibly Happen?

There are a few places that it is best if I’m accompanied by a responsible  adult and by responsible, I’m meaning one that can ensure I exit the place with the same amount of things I entered it with and make no exchange of money for goods (because I could justify this by saying that I’ve swapped x notes for x items of whatever which would then defeat the whole point of them attending in the first place) and not be swayed by any of my persuasive arguments. 

I responsible adult is not someone else who has the same “problem” as me. They are often my enablers. 

These places include:

• Bookstores (new or used – I don’t discriminate) – it doesn’t seem to matter that I do most of my reading on a kindle. It is not possible to read too much. I tend to donate my read books unless there is a compelling reason to keep them and I’m going through my bookshelves again at the moment. I also have a To Be Read Pile in hard and soft formats that should see me through any major event where I am housebound and the internet isn’t working. If people would stop writing, it would make it a lot easier for me to stop adding to this pile. That’s not true at all, there are plenty of books already written that I don’t own and haven’t read yet. Yes, I am familiar with libraries… perhaps only other bookstore addicts will understand this one properly! 
• Stationery stores (or even the stationery aisle at the supermarket) – I am a sucker for a good notebook in particular though I’m also prone to purchasing other bits and pieces if they look a certain way. I can easily justify any of these for the dive centre and / or my writing or if it will make me better organised. I like being  organised and anything that helps this will usually cause me to look twice. At least.
• Diving shops – when will the accessories stop?!!! I don’t technically need anything else diving related however there is always room to upgrade, colour-coordinate or add to my general kit (though any additions at this stage aren’t technically needed – I have all I need to stay alive in the water and anything else is a bonus). Sometimes replacements are required, these are ok. Or for different seasons because it’s important to not be too hot or cold in the water. It impacts safety.

Then there are the crossover areas:

• Diving and stationery – I am partial to a good diving slate – these are used to write on underwater. I write reminders to myself as well as using them to teach people about fish, play games with kids I’m diving with and even a random game of naughts and crosses on safety stops. I don’t like them for conversations unless desperate because one of the great things about being underwater is having to look for alternate ways to communicate or to wait until on the surface again. I like this. 
  There are also my diving log books where I track all my dives and what I see as well as notebooks that have the underwater world on them.
•  Diving and bookstores – fish identification books, books about the underwater world, fiction and non-fiction diving books, they don’t stop! I’m currently looking at a book about if octopus have souls though admittedly, that’s on my kindle.
• Stationery and bookstores – notebooks featuring some of my favourite quotes or characters (ahh Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan – I have both). Ink refills, bookmarks of characters… this one can go on forever.

When I’m by myself and have no time pressures, anything can happen.

This is the situation I found myself in at the airport in Koh Samui last weekend. I had five hours before my flight (yes that’s exceptionally early even for me however the ferry from Koh Tao saw me arrive there at that time and there’s not a lot else to do in Samui so I figured I could hang out there and bizarrely, I don’t mind spending time at airports. At least I’m there and not stuck in traffic, anxious that I may miss my flight – this has happened). The flight was three hours.

This airport has a bookstore… with stationery… thankfully no dive store but it did have a store selling mermaids…

And I had some spare Thai currency.

I went into the bookstore once. It was a little small and crowded with the two assistants and two other customers so I didn’t spend too long in there. Long enough to see a Readers Digest that looked interesting, some notebooks that actually didn’t appeal to me that much because their size was wrong though I liked the colours and some books on the way out that I didn’t look too hard because I’ve seen their titles on Netflix and figured I was likely to be interested.

An hour passed.

I bought a mermaid.

She has turquoise hair, with a yellow headband and a pink glittery tail. She matches pretty well everything I own and I’ve just passed my Instructor Exam so she’s a good momento and I can attach her to my Padi backpack because every Padi Instructor has one and I don’t want mine to get mixed up with anyone else’s.

Another hour passed.

I went into the bookstore for the second time.

To be fair, I’m not sure if it was the books that were sucking me in or the air conditioning since the Samui airport is all outdoor and the shops are very cool, perhaps a vacuum was created when a person left just as I was walking by it and then it sucked me in like a Dyson picks up dirt.

I flicked through the Readers Digest. It seemed thinner than the ones I remembered reading when I was growing up. Still had some of the humourous sections though looked like less serious stuff. Still seemed interesting.

I meandered through the store. I had plenty of time and the air conditioner was bliss.

Up and down the aisles I went.

I read the backs of countless books. Fiction, non-fiction. Books about Thailand, mysteries, business and some on travel and diving in Thailand.

Then I was at the checkout with two books and the Readers Digest.

To my credit, I left behind a lot more books than I took out.

Lucky there were no dive stores.

 

* Thanks to Muse for the title to this post.

** Note – I didn’t read any of this while I was at the airport or on the plane. Still have one book left to read.