Bookends

“You’re gonna need a bigger casket,” my husband insists. “With built-in bookcases.”

“Cicero said that ‘a room without books is like a body without a soul.’” I toss him a lofty quote, as I shuffle his remote controls littering the coffee table. NASA could launch the space shuttle from here.

Hubby steps over a soon-to-be-read stack on the floor. “I’ll bet Cicero didn’t need GPS to navigate around his books.”

I love books. My husband loves remote controls.

I lug home books from garage sales, thrift shops, estate sales, and sometimes even book stores. I buy them online, offline, and at readings where I stand in long lines to have the author scribble something illegible on the front fly page. Those lines usually snake around aisles where I find more books to buy. I’m weak in a bookstore.

My friends always have the next book I “should” read. It’s the last book they read. Consequently, my queue is steadily growing, and I need my own Tower of Babel to get to the top.

Hubby’s friends always have the next remote-controlled device he “should” buy: air conditioners, ceiling fans, light switches, lawnmowers, vacuum cleaners, radios, CD players, car starters, projectors, garage doors. So far, no one’s suggested a remote-controlled wife.

My husband once calculated that I’ll be 306 years old before I can read the books I’ve currently acquired. Coincidentally, it’s the same number of AAA batteries I’ve calculated he’ll need for his remotes. The Energizer Bunny could retire to an island paradise to sip parasol-topped tropical drinks on what we’ve spent on batteries.

On our first wedding anniversary, I gave my husband a copy of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women.”  “One should not live and die without reading this book” I lovingly scrawled on the cover page. Many years later, I’m not sure he’s read the notation. I’m positive he’s never read the book.

By the next anniversary, my daydreams of spending leisurely afternoons sharing poetry with my beloved vanished. Shortly thereafter, I joined my first book club.

It’s not that my husband doesn’t like books. He often opens one on a long flight and pretends to be engrossed to keep chatty passengers beside him quiet. It’s hard to do that with a remote control, though he says the “mute” button would come in handy.

“A dog-eared paperback will deter almost anyone,” he says.

He’s also found home improvement books handy for securing projects until the glue dries. And he swears there’s no better doorstop.

My guilty pleasure is reading in bed. My husband has a favorite place to read too. It’s not in bed.

“A copy of ‘War and Peace’ puts me to sleep faster than Ambien,” he says.

As a child I learned that you can’t judge a book by its cover. As a young bride, I learned that the same is true for a husband.

While my husband is recruiting hefty pall bearers for my book-laden casket, I’ll be installing a remote control caddy in his.

I hope Hubby likes his anniversary gift this year. He’ll be the only guy on the block with a remote-controlled toilet seat for his reading room. It’s remotely possible he’ll read more.