I was in the province the entire weekend. I was still in the province when the heavy Manila rain poured Sunday afternoon. And so when we got into our apartment Monday morning, the smell of wet (and kulob) paper, rags, floor vinyl and just about anything else that touches the floor, well, floored me.
These are some of my books - among the lucky ones that wasn't dripping wet after that unfortunate flooding in our apartment. These ones I've just put to dry under the sunlight. The covers are fine, since most of them are covered in plastic, but their pages are going to be wrinkly forever, with discoloration in the parts that got wet (lower half, since they were arranged standing up).
The others, my The Far Side and The Simpsons books among them, weren't so lucky. :( They're very very wet that time I first stepped into the apartment, with pages stuck together. Now that they've dried a little, tearing the pages apart ruins the prints, especially for the colored ones! :(
After the apartment clean up that took me an entire day to finish, I bought two of these from SM Homeworld to keep my books in (and also my sister's college documents that she treasures very much). I plan to buy more for the other paper things in the house. Good thing these boxes were on sale.
This devastating thing that happened to my collection initially made me change my position in the great printed books vs. e-books debate. I thought, if these were all e-books, I could easily put them all in one safe place with one hand, and even better, I can take them all with me whenever I travel anywhere.
But then again, it had me thinking, if these were all digital files, will I still be able to call it my collection? I mean, don't books in electric format kind of detach the personality of the owner from the books he owns. I'm too sentimental and old-fashioned that way. LOL. In fact, until now, I'd still very much prefer physical CDs with all their labels and packaging over digital downloads.
And that point regarding CDs needs a separate blog entry to explain. Haha.
There are a lot other things that got wet of course, including some CDs (good thing only the pirated audio discs and data CDs are in the bottom shelf), shoes, the clothes in the hamper, documents and even our plantsa and our sack of bigas. The floor itself still has its dull chalky color, which must be waxed this weekend.
Oh. Did I mention we're on the second floor?
3 comments:
Augh, Elvino! I feel for you. I would really be devastated if the same thing happened to my book collection. I bought those plastic crates last December and all the books are there now. :) Go buy more. Good investments yan.
Ayus yan, magkano yan? gusto ko din ng plastic containers for the DVDs and books sa apartment. :D
Dropped by.
Gelo: And also, I think it's time to migrate to the iPAds and the Kindles of the world haha.
Chichirya: I think I got them for 275 each. Sorry poor memory :P
Post a Comment