Come fire, come floods, come fungus!

I tell myself that one of the reasons I decided not to become a librarian (other than the fact that when I asked a dean of a certain library school if he could recommend a seminal text on library science, he stopped himself mid-answer and said, "No, you'd better not read it. It's awful.") is that I'm not a collector. Many librarians I know have amazing collections. But I am not so good with the possession thing. I am a borrower. I appreciate a good collection; I just don't want it taking up space in my home.

Come fire, come floods, come fungus. I do not care. A borrower never has to worry that there's no living person around who knows how to fix her eight-track tape deck. The borrower's motto is never collect any media that requires special hardware to enjoy. So I was content with my dozen CD's, 25 odd books, and couple handfuls of VHS tapes. Until I bought a DVD player. At first I loved Netflix. I could rent whatever I wanted without fear of video store hipster clerk judgments (that'll be in the frustrated baby-buster section, ma'am). But Netflix isn't fast enough. I have 50 movies in my queue. There's no way I'll be in the mood for Death To Smoochy when it arrives. I want to see Ed Norton in a rhino costume when I want to see it, not when Netflix and the post office get it together. Thanks to the DVD, I have this strange new urge to possess the movies, to know that they'll be there when I need them. Is this what being a collector feels like?