Opheliaphilia, or fondness for the forbidden.

Of course we all, like Ophelia, oblige to know, but with no better understanding than she, why the guy, who makes plenty of noise when he's into it, simply zips up and leaves without a word when he's finished. Understandably, Ophelia was distressed by Hamlet's behavior—particularly the part when he killed her father on the way out of the room. Or maybe it was just because "Ol' Dad" was hiding in her bedroom the whole time.

But that's the way things go. One day you're getting wooed by the cute, young, rich guy your father likes to warn you about, and next, the guy busts into your sewing closet with his pants around his ankles apparently wanting a job of one kind or another. While carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts abound these days, all three are rarely witnessed in a single afternoon at home, unless you're watching premium cable programming.

PetOphelia, I call it. Her daddy thought it, Hamlet tried to do it, and arguably both are guilty of it. A Fondness for the Forbidden.

But then I've always been a bit confused about the whole "philia" thing. Especially lately. I've noticed one of the judges on American Idol enjoys calling people "Ophelia Dog"—at least that's what I think he's saying—pronouncing it in the fashion of the South (Southern California, that is). I never suspected he was such a fan of Hamlet, and never have figured out the "dog" part. I don't remember any dog in the story. Maybe it was in the closet while she was sewing?

Moreover, when I ask people who I'd think would know, they just groan a little with the usual weak, false condescending smile they always greet me with. How am I to learn if no one will teach me? I don't know how many times I've failed to get an answer to even the most basic question like, for example:

If a pedophile has sex with children, a zoophile wants to diddle Fido, and an anglophile engages in self-abuse while viewing photos of the Queen-Mother, what else but hemophilia explains why the lights are on at the Red Cross Blood Bank at three in the morning?

It's an honest question, and I for one, am none too willing to sit idly by while my tax dollars fund someones perversion.

Speaking of perversion, you might see why I had a little trouble at my first job in college, at a local used bookstore. My bosses were new money. Well, Cathy was new money, Rick was just along for the ride, at least until he wasn't, but somehow managed to get the store in the settlement.

They were new-money-kind-of-folk. Self-educated, of course. Anyone, especially the two of them, could see they were far too intelligent for traditional higher education. These were folks who delighted in dressing down all those so uneducated, so illiterate, and so unwashed that they might happen to misspell pædophilia.

In their view, to neglect an ümlaut, or use an ácute rather than a gràve mark, which is pretty much anyone with a big toe on each foot, was sufficient grounds to be unwelcome in their presence and, apparently, although it was never posted despite my suggestions to the contrary, sufficient cause for the ample application of condescention.

It was from Rick and Cathy that I learned what it meant to be a bibliophile.

They owned a popular used book store in town—arguably the most popular— despite the careful lack of progressive, alternative, or just plain depraved inventory (except for those Rick was fond of, in his own way for hours at a time, in the privacy of his personal VIP room—a makeshift broom closet above the restrooms).

They posted a sign soliciting "bibliophiles" to apply for a part-time position. Part-time so they wouldn't have to deal with employee benefits and such—just like the fast-food outfits and Walmart without the media oversight or the promise of promotion to fry cook or greeter. I could tell they were serious because of the playful rainbow colors applied to the six or eight typefaces sprinkled throughout the twenty-or-so words that comprised the sign's text.

Like anyone else out of work but possessing more books than all other belongings combined (volume-wise and commonsense-wise), I figured it might be for me, so I applied.

During the interview, Rick, representing an exquisite ethical quality I came to appreciate in the coming months, understated the tasks required of me when he asked how I felt about "performing rote tasks". I learned that a fondness of books was, apparently, required for three tasks that would be required of me: scrubbing what must be the most disgusting bathroom not located at a service station, sweeping every horizontal surface in sight, and sorting, resorting, and selling sorted and resorted romance novels.

Surprisingly, the more I learned about becoming a professional bibliophile, the less I wanted of it. My nose doesn't go quite so high, and I rather enjoy reading books I spend money not just admiring them on the shelf or telling people I have them. Besides, if I just wanted to be a snob, or asshole as we called them back at home, I'd practice the profession I trained for in college and be an architect.

A professional bibliophile, I learned, takes great delight in wrapping any book, of any potential value (or negligible value, it turns out) in the same cellophane material libraries used for reasons that I still don't understand. (I'd never showered wearing a raincoat and I didn't intend to start, and am offended on principle that they would make a priori judgments about what I might do with the books I checked out).

I learned a real bibliophile writes prices in books with pencil, and never on the first page. I learned a real bibliophile doesn't care if the an indentation from the pencil remains after the graphite is erased.

And I learned that real Bibliophiles are friends of the community.

Rick and Cathy, since taking ownership of the shop from Cathy's father, Leon, had become literary suppliers for a most unlikely clientele. Every few days, I was asked (Rick's word), to carefully (only Rick would not ruin everything he touched, apparently) haul several boxes of discharged library books, books with marks of any kind, and any book that, without regard for it's content, age, or pedigree, that might come in with a worn binding, to the bin behind the store.

Once a week, a big truck would come by to collect them. Whomever wound up with these books could sure read fast. They always took whatever we left for them, week after week without exception, and were never impolite enough to leave the romance novels behind.

So committed were Rick and Cathy to this cause that I was required to lock the bin every night except Tuesday, under repeated threat of dismissal. No one, if they could help it, would be allowed to deprive the waste-management workers of San Luis Obispo of their reading materials while Rick and Cathy were around. No one.

When it was discovered, at some point, that some selfish folk were raiding the bin on Wednesday mornings before it was properly picked up, Rick began to arrive hours early to personally open the lock, but only when the truck sent to collect it arrived, and then only for the few minutes required to empty it. This really pissed me off too because for a couple weeks in a row, I'd gotten up early to get the books out of the dumpster before the trash truck took 'em.

No, I didn't last long as a professional bibliophile. It became difficult to justify, ethically, depriving Rick and Cathy of the $5.75 an hour (pre-tax) they paid me week after week as a bibliophile. After all, during my tenure as a bibliophile, I'd had to sign up for food stamps, which was quite humiliating and invasive. Rick and Cathy seemed to enjoy the act of ruining a person, rather than ruling over a person in ruin, and it just didn't seem polite to deprive them of the happiness they deserved.

Flash forward almost ten years. My wife and I bought our first house last January. We aren't really the "park the car in the garage" kind of people. So, like good consumers, we just stored a lot of stuff in it.

Much of the central area was filled with boxes. Boxes and boxes of books. Still is, in fact. Old books. New books. Library discard books. Books with writing in them. Books with worn bindings. Books regardless of age or pedigree. Hundreds of them. Books awaiting space on shelves. Shelves like those in the two perfectly-good bookcases I was told to destroy, so long ago back at the used bookstore, to make way for new ones or marginally greater value.

It is a bibliophile's collection (my definition, not Rick's). Diverse. Perverse. Profound. Rotund. Books for selected for their content. Books intended for (gasp)… reading.

I still dream from time to time, after learning of our home's history, of inviting over the folks who owned the house almost ten years ago, for a cup of coffee while perusing my fabulous book collection.

But alas, I don't think Rick and Cathy would accept my invitation.