Barnes & Noble should name a wing after me

I'm a sick man. I'm a weak man. I admit it, I've let my addiction dictate my life.

I should have picked up heroin when it was fashionable. Instead of listening to Nancy Reagan telling us to say "no," I should have said "yes" when the cocaine lines were passed my way. I missed out on the good addictions - alcoholism would be perfect, but the hangovers the next morning zap my desire to toss back another gin and tonic, and that's critical to any good alcoholic, keeping the buzz alive with another Jack and Coke - and all that's left is the ugliness that is a book-buying addict.

Hello, I'm Mikey, and I'm a book buyer. Hi, Mikey. I don't necessarily read the books I buy, I just buy them to leave on the shelf.

I blame college. Telling me I have to buy the fourth addition of "Why Sloths Eat Their Poo" for my Intro to Sociology class when the third addition contained all the same information save one paragraph that described the consistency of said poo made about as much sense as having to read such a textbook. There I was every September and January in the school bookstore buying books I had little intention of reading (maybe that's why my school record is incredibly mediocre - you mean I was supposed to read those short storys for class? Who knew!). Don't get me wrong, I love a good tale. Sit me on a sun-drenched beach with a good book and I can kill out seventy pages in a day (I'm not exactly a fast reader, to be honest, I'm maybe a step away from reading out loud to myself; if you see me reading aloud, I'm not reading to you, I'm just sounding the tough, five-letter words). I just didn't like overpaid, pompous gas bags (professors) telling me what to read. If they need a book to teach from, why the heck is my tuition money paying for them to stand in front of us sheep to puke out what the book said. Either teach me or shove the book in my paws and tell me to return in December for the final.

Schools always denounced peer pressure when I was growing up, but they conveniently looked the other way when it came to buying books. In fact, they were as bad as my old man telling me I had to drink down the Schlitz before running on the field for the Idyllwild Little League championship game. "Look," the professor would say, "don't be the one chucklehead who didn't buy the book, hurry out with your eighty bucks and buy your 29-page school book. Be like your classmates, they're all going to buy it." And like a good bong smoker I succumbed to the pressure and started buying textbooks, which quickly turned into rock star biographies, recommended novels (key word is recommended, much different than required or we'll fail your ass), novels with cool looking covers (look at the pretty colors), and true crime mob stories. If it had pages with words, I was pumping the story through my eyes and into the visual cortex of my brain. I'd go to charity book sales and punch out seniors if they reached for the same 50-cent copy of some lousy John Grisham book. "Watch out, old man, you don't want to get hurt over 'The Pelican Brief' do ya? I'll rip out your oxygen tube and hook it to a helium tank."

Barnes & Noble should write me a thank you note. Wife and I (she's almost as sick as I am) single-handedly bought both Barnes, and his bed buddy Noble, their yachts, 14-bedroom mansions in the Poconos and their extensive (I'm guessing, them being booksellers and all) library of books. Without our contributions, those two schmucks would be running stores for used coloring books. I'm waiting for my cut, you a-holes, or at least a free cappucino in the Cafe.

My collection has swelled to the point I don't think I'll live long enough to read everything, and like any good junky, I blame someone for that, too. The king of schlock himself - Stephen King - who lured me into his crack den of novels and have left track marks on my brown ocular orbs, mainly due in part to his Dark Tower series. It was fine when first book clocked in at a little more than 300 pages, but then the psycho couldn't leave well enough alone and slowly the page numbers for subsequent DT books crept skyward. The final book in the series weighs in at 1,000-plus pages. I haven't written more than 1,000 pages in my life and this putz put down that much in one story? At least King is considering his fans' safety, if an intruder got past our vicious watch dogs I could still smack him over the head with "The Dark Tower." Instead of carrying mace, I'm giving Wife the book as protection when she walks along those dangerous Sun City streets. You can never be safe enough out there with rowdy bands of seniors prowling the roads for under-35 prey.

I've given the next book I plan to read more thought than what I'd name my kid, and looking at the book shelves, I'm overwhelmed. Baseball books, boxing books, novels about low-lifes, mobsters, old dudes riding bicycles across the country, a young wizard and his mates foiling diabolical plots perpetrated by a madman who shall not be named; there's too much to choose from and I'm afraid my eyeballs are going to pop out of my head, flip me off and leave out the front door.

Then again, there's always audio books. Crap, my ears just sucked into my head, hiding from the thought of having to listen to King blather on, reading a 1,000 page tale.