Some years ago, never mind how long precisely, the ice-maker in my fridge began leaving a watery residue on my floor.

So I stopped using the ice-maker.

A few days ago I called the Sears repair center and today the Sears guy arrived. His name was Wesly. (That’s how it’s spelled on his card.)

We got off to a somewhat rocky start, as after retrieving his bag from the back of his van he trampled right over some of my bloomin’ crocuses.

But when he entered the house, the first thing he noticed (he would’ve had to ‘ve been blind not to) was the piles and piles of books that now fill my living room.

“You’re the man with the books!”

“Those are just the ones that I’m planning to get rid of,” I said. I made a vow to divest myself of at least 500 books, and so far I’ve picked out nearly 700. Pretty, pretty good.

“Do you have any on philosophy or theology?” asked Wesly.

“Uh, I don’t think so…” By theology I was pretty sure he didn’t mean “atheism”.

“Here’s The Humanist Alternative. That’s philosophy, isn’t it?”

“Ye-e-ah, I guess so.” And also atheistic.

In the end he picked out five books. In addition to the one on Humanism, there were two dictionaries, a book on Reincarnation, and Coping With Difficult People.

I had bought the latter book specifically to help dealing with Colonel B. It didn’t really help.

Wesly said he’d be giving one of the dictionaries to his church, which is probably a good place for an out-of-date reference book.

I didn’t charge him for the books, and he only charged me $133 to fix the ice-maker (it required a new plastic tube).