You Can't Get Rid of TextBooks

We all assume that all the stress and torture attributed to one school year gets over when we write the last final exam? We think we can just sit back and relax, enjoy the summer, hang out with our friends and never look at the monstrous books ever again, right? But, in my (insignificant ) opinion, the real chore starts now – when we have to get rid of the piles of textbooks.

Throughout the year, our load of textbooks keeps increasing. They make a bigger mess in our room, and a bigger hole in our (parent’s) pockets. As our exams get over, we start dumping them in a corner, emptying the ‘study-cupboard’, meaning to get them donated at some point of our lives.

If you are anything liked me, I would procrastinate sorting these books till my mother goes berserk. They would be an eyesore all throughout summer but the idea of going through the books (and seeing stupid physics formulae or chemical equations) made me push this chore right to the bottom of the to-do list.

Some of you are lucky enough to have a sibling, who is a year or two younger than you, and all you need to do is transfer your truckload of books to their room, and you are done. The books are their problem now. But for most of us, who have no younger siblings (or siblings who are a lot younger), we actually need to find other people to give the books to.

My first instinct was to ask all the juniors I know to take the books, but if one procrastinates for long enough, most people already get hold of books from external sources. When all the connections of our ‘far-reaching’ Whatsapp groups extinguishes, we attempt to find people who really need these books in real life. We approach school-libraries to ask whether they (or anyone they know) need our ‘almost untouched’ books, and we get a sheepish no. We contemplate donating them to a book bank, but between reading books for four year olds and dark fiction, our heavy, black-and-white, bleak textbooks look out of place.

These books contained ‘useless’ information that school forced us to learn for no apparent reason. They were an inconvenience when school was in term, and now we have to spend our precious summer days trying to find them a new home. If the job of the books were to infuriate me, they have succeeded.

After a week of failing to find anyone to get the books and messaging more people than I was comfortable to, I gave up. I fully accepted that these piles upon piles of books would be a constant showpiece in my room (a showpiece that would grow each year). Who would have guessed that getting rid of these books was a bigger challenge than actually (not) studying it?

PS. For anyone wondering, I just returned them to the store I got them from. Don’t throw your expensive, heavy textbooks away.