Dream job: owner of a japanese secondhand bookshop

Secondhand bookshops:

Every time I visit one, there's the owner reading one or another of his books, or perhaps chatting with a friend. Usually there's also a full ashtray on the counter, and the tobacco smoke mingles with the absolutely lovely smell of old books. You cram yourself between the high bookshelves and start browsing with your eyes: Dôgen, Eiheiji, Shinran, Pure Land, some Shingon...

First you go to the books that look old and serious, the taikei-editions in their yellowish cases. There's always something that catches the eye, and even though you try to turn your head away, thinking about how heavy it is and how much it will cost, it somehow manages to attract your gaze over and over again, until at last you give in to the temptation and reach for the book. As you slowly take the dark red book out of the cover you wonder about the price. Will it be 1000 yen? Will it be 5000 yen? You never know. You take a quick look at the last page where the price tag is fastened, and breathe in sharply - 1000 yen, must buy!

You make a silent promise not to buy anything else, but still make the mistake of staying in the shop, and turn to the newer and more colourful books. The books don't care about the fact that you just promised to take home only one of them, but start a shouting match to get your attention. "Look at me", they yell, "I've got both Shinran and discrimination!" "No, pick me, I'm all about Death!" "Ignore them and come here instead, look, shugyô at Eiheiji, what more do you still want?" "Nonono, I've got both Shinran AND Dôgen, and the four sufferings!" On and on they go, until you feel ready to faint. In the vain attempt of fighting the rising wave of panic and to do some kind of selection among the books who, by this time, are jumping into your arms, you start
looking for the signs - who is the author and from where has he graduated, are either of the 2 Honganji's mentioned in his short cv, does his name look "freaky" - anything to make possible at least some kind of selection among them all. You pick one or two, and leave the rest of them muttering in your wake as you run towards the counter...

Not so fast! Happy to have your arms full of books, you stop to take the last look at the slim and cheap bunko editions. Somehow one or two always manage to mysteriously make their way on the top of the books previously chosen - "we are small and cheap", they purr, "look, I'm only 250 yen..." By now your desperation (and budget) has overflown so badly, that you actually start feeling a kind of peace and harmony with the world. So what if I have to somehow ship all these back home in 2 months! So what that I won't eat anything in the next few weeks! Just for the heck of it (and because it has pretty pictures of young monks in nice surroundings) you grab an illustrated book about Kôyasan, with the vague intention of "using it in the future to something useful".

At last you are on the counter, giving your books to the old man whose smile grows as he counts the amount of money you will be paying for the honor of bringing your new friends back home. He wraps all your books and puts them to a bag, and says the magic words showing one of the cheaper books in your pile: "これ、サービスにします。" ("Let's just put this one on the house") And that makes your day. You don't even think of the 10 000 yen note that changes hands, thank the kind old man again and again, and leave him behind smoking his cigarette, and taking up the book he was reading when you came to disturb him with your needs.