Finding Tolkien.

Remember when Hobbit-Mania struck the land?
The weeks and even months leading up to the release of the first installment of Peter Jackson’s Lord of The Rings trilogy in the theatres?
It was the winter of 2001.
Back then, it was hard to find a place that was uninhobbited. The marketing machine was in full swing, and rightfully so. Moviedom had never taken on a project as grandiose and off-the-scale as this bringing of Tolkien’s classic to the big screen. I think the production cost for Lord of The Rings was something like 168 million dollars?
At any rate, as you might expect, I was already a fan of the books, having read the Trilogy long before it was ever a movie. In fact, I probably read the thing before Elijah Wood was born.
But with the impending release of The Fellowship of The Ring, I set out to re-read the books. To refresh my memory, prior to movie-time. And this time I tracked the journey through Middle Earth with an excellent guide, Barabara Strachey’s book, Journeys of Frodo: An Atlas of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of The Rings. [Published by HarperCollins].
I found this guide to be immeasurably helpful in keeping track of exactly where everyone is throughout the story. It contains 51 maps, with accompanying text on the opposite page of each map. Invaluable information and commentary.... and in one or two instances, Strachey points out where even Tolkien himself got a bit miscomhobbitated in his calculations. She corrects a few minor textual discrepancies. Really, the atlas is amazing.
OK, so one evening after work I am sitting in this mega-bookstore over there by the fireplace, and I am reading through Volume 1 as if pursued by a slavering band of Orcs! I’m getting right into it. [By the way, I use the term “over there” because as I write this, I am still at the same mega-bookstore. I am dead serious. Things may change in Middle Earth... but in MY Earth? No... things on Planet Bookpuddle are pretty much the same as they were four years ago! I’m not sure, but I think I am even wearing the same shirt today as I was then! But back to my story...]
So I’m sitting there and it just happens to be just to the right of the Science Fiction section of the store. Soon I began to take note of the steady stream of people, usually in twos or threes, coming up to a certain section of the shelves and searching, shaking their heads.... and leaving. A few times, I saw people leaving that particular area of shelving and walking straight out into the bitter cold!
I swear to you, what I am about to relate here is 100% true. At first, I just kept reading away....
But then more people. And then some more. So finally, curiosity getting the better of me, plus... I needed to stretch.... I had been sitting there for about six hours.... I got up and walked over to the exact location of the intense consternation. I could tell exactly where the hordes of people had been standing because the rug was all worn out right there. Plus it was all wet where the snow had been melting off of their horridly disappointed shoes.
Aha!
It was Tolkien they were after!
Obviously, other prospective moviegoers wanted to do exactly what I was doing.... brush up on their Tolkien, or maybe experience the Ring for the first time!
But right there, right where the masterpiece should have been..... was nothing.
Either the books were WEARING the Ring... or......
“But wait a minute” I said to myself. “This is impossible. How can this BOOKstore not have....?”
Then it dawned on me. And you know it as well as I do right now.
You know where all of the Tolkien books were?
ON A BIG DISPLAY TABLE toward the BACK OF THE STORE!
And I mean, on that shivering table were Lord of The Rings books up the wazoo!
Piled ten hobbits high! At least! But no one was seeing it! Plus, the shelves were being picked clean so quickly, that real book-buying patrons (unlike me) were leaving the store without a purchase because they just thought the Tolkien stuff was SOLD OUT! As I mentioned above, I watched many of them leave!

Well, I could not stand for this.
After all, I want this mega-bookstore to prosper. I have a vested interest.
It is much more to me than a “second home”.
Plus... ALL MY MAIL IS DELIVERED HERE!
So I went and found the manager.
I led her back to the soggy rugworn area in question and I told her, I said “Are you aware that in the past six hours I have observed several [and I emphasized that word “several”] really serious prospective buyers leaving your store because [and I pointed] there is nothing right here where, according to my calculations, books should be replenished every three minutes or so?” [She’s looking at me like I am a lunatic.... but I continue] OR a little sign placed in the space, indicating that over there at the Leaning Tower of Bookpile there is at least four thousand copies of what they are looking for?”
I am not exaggerating when I tell you that she said to me “Sir, we have a fairly visible display set up and I assure you, we do keep the shelves stocked on a regular basis and...”

“But people are leaving!” I pleaded. “They are leaving without buying anything. I see them!”

To say that my own tears then fell onto the floor... and mingled with the residue of the thawed parking lot slush.... would be not only melodramatic and sappy, but false. Just false.
And what I strive for on this blogpage is truth, not falsity. Verisimilitude, not fabrication.
No. I did NOT cry into the gritty slush!
I cried into the sleeve of my sweater.
And.... I gave up.

And I went and sat back down by the fireplace.
And as Ms. Manager walked past me with her huffy little authoritative strut and dismissive glance, oh hell yes I wanted to trip her.
But I didn’t.
And as she walked away, yes, I wanted to yell out, “Of course, it’s easy for you. You just work here! BUT I LIVE HERE, DAMMIT!”
But I didn’t.
There’s one thing no one needs in the dead of winter.
An eviction!