That One Time I Dropped Beef on The Young Elites

Yeah, I was pretty upset about it.

So here’s a quick run-down on what happened: I had decided to bring my very own copy of The Young Elites out as I’d gotten to the point where I was hooked and couldn’t stop reading it. Fast forward a few hours later and I’m having lunch, trying out a rice bowl and sushi rolls from a new store that had opened in the school canteen. The food sounded interesting (tom yum beef bowl and caramelized onion and beef sushi roll) but tasted mediocre, nothing too life-changing. I finished my food and was about to leave with my friends when I noticed a crisis had broken out on the cover of TYE.

Beef. Not one, but two not-so-teensy blobs of beef on the cover (mind you, there was no book jacket on) of TYE. Naturally, I freaked out and swatted the beef off my cover but was too late because oil stains had already formed on the cover. I tried to wipe them off gently with wet wipes, but it just made things worse since liquid and book covers don’t get along well; fibers from the book cover began fraying and falling off like a person with severe hair loss issues (ok, it wasn’t that bad, but still).

And that was the sob story of how my copy of TYE got attacked by beef. The only thing I got out of that experience was to never, ever bring out my books if I want to keep them safe from dirt and harm. It’s Pretty OCD of me, but you know how precious books are.

While I was rambling on about how upset I was to Adelena, she suggested one method which she used to protect her books whenever she brought them out.

“You can use plastic bags – you know the kind where you use to put fruits at the supermarket? – to wrap the book. The book will be protected from everything, and you can even put it in your bag without worrying about chafing the edges of your book.”

– Adelena, 2015

It doesn’t seem like a bad idea, actually. I think I might try it out with TYE (and pray that it won’t suffer any more harm).

What about you? Do you have any rituals to protect your books when you bring them out?