So, apparently my dealer's name is Vladimir. Which makes sense.

Vladimir shows up randomly in my neighborhood and parks his unmarked white van in front of a Chase bank and unloads his wares in corrugated fruit boxes. He's not a librarian, and his organizational system, while unscientific, is nowhere near as sick as the one used by the hipsters that run The Strand: children's picture books, dated hardback nonfiction, paperback mysteries and romance novels, thousands of volumes by Danielle Steel, and always a box of YA novels. Like any good dealer, Vladimir disappears for long stretches of time and then shows up right when I'm starting to get the shakes.

"Where were you?" I moaned, digging through a Chiquita Bananas box and trying to decide if my threshhold for public humiliation was high enough to buy the entire collection of Boxcar Children books Vladimir had brought.

"I have another set up in Woodside," he said, and I felt actual physical betrayal, like I'd just discovered my father had a second family in Reno or something. "I have shade there."

I hated Woodside fiercely for stealing God-knows-how-many books that were rightfully mine, and in punishment, I bought only five books from Vladimir this weekend. Yeah, I bet that really showed him.