Incongruity

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

However, I think there are exceptions.  Books covered in images of shirtless muscle-men with waist-length flowing hair and gripping a half-undressed woman are usually, well, trashy novels.  Girl-p*rn, really.

A while back I was searching for a handful of classic kids books, and was hitting up the second-hand stores in Town to see if I could avoid the shipping costs of buying online.  Hubby and the kids waited in the van while I perused the back wall of one such shop, passing over the obligatory Microwave Cooking cookbooks and MS-DOS how-to manuals.  A demure, older Mennonite woman walked to the back of the store as well, and went directly to the far end of the wall.  A-ha, I thought.  That's where the good stuff is.  I pretended to continue searching along as I slowly made my way in her direction, waiting until she had made her selections and left the area.  I happily strode towards the Good Shelf.

To find books covered in images of shirtless muscle-men...

I laughed to myself, when standing in line to buy some 50¢ crayola paints, the woman was turning in a good-sized stack of similar novels to get 'credit' towards the purchase of the new stack.  Classic literature indeed.  Silly me. :)

Just goes to show that you can't judge a book by its cover...?