I’m not much into the written fantasy-genre. I mean, I enjoyed Lord of the Rings, but I was content to wait for them on DVD. It’s generally not my cup of tea — which isn’t to say that I don’t read fantasy, I would just be hard pressed to name a single work of Robert Jordan (and I only know that because my buddy Keith is huge into fantasy and keeps telling me I should read his books).

My introduction to the fantasy genre came from an author named Angus Wells and a book titled Lords of the Sky. I bought it at Borders in Columbia when I was a junior in high school. It was on their “New Fiction Release” table inside the doors. The cover looked interesting, and I decided to give it a try on that alone. It was great. I’d like to say that about all his books, but of his works that I tried, I just couldn’t get into it. It’d be like running in molasses … it was very discouraging.

There was an ad in the back of Lords of the Sky for another fantasy book coming out the next spring, by someone named Robin Hobb. The blurb mentioned something about a royal family’s bastard being apprenticed in the art of assassination. After my dissapointing foray into Wells’ body of work, I dismissed it. I dismissed it, that is, until that spring, when I found a copy of the book displayed again on the “New Fiction Release” table. The cover depicted an older adult with his hand on the shoulder of a young boy. In the background, a massive castle with towering towers and spires and air bridges connecting them.

I bought it. I devoured it. I loved it.

Assassin’s Apprentice was the first of nine Robin Hobb books I’ve read over the years — three trilogies, each related to the other. (In an interesting note, the second book of the third trilogy is titled Fool’s Fate but has nothing to do with this Fool).

In any case, I was elated to discover the announcement of the first book of a fourth trilogy sometime last spring. I was all, “Woot!”

And then I forgot about it. I forgot that I could get it from Amazon.com on September 6th. I forgot about it until late Friday, when my brain suddenly clicked into gear and said: “New Robin Hobb!”

So Saturday afternoon I ventured to Borders in Lutherville. They didn’t have it. Frustrating, particularly since my plans for the evening revolved around reading the book. So I made the decision to violate my shopping rule. Well, which is to say, to violate it even further — there are, you see, two parts to it.

I instituted my shopping rule to cut down on stress, and it is quite simply summed up as: “Never, ever, go shopping at peak times.” The rule elaborates, “Never, ever, ever, go to Towson Town Center, particularly on nights, weekends or anytime after Halloween and before New Years.”

I went to Borders in Lutherville during peak shopping times. The parking lot was crowded — I had to park over by Michael’s. No complaints — need the exercise. But in order to actually get the book, I had to try for the next best shot: Barnes & Noble. Essentially in Towson Town Center.

Oh, dear god, why?

I generally try to park in the recessed lot with the Trader Joe’s. Sometimes, if its busy, I wind up parking in the Towson Town Center garage lot. It is convenient, sometimes. Not Saturday. Between nearly getting wrecked by some ditz with a dog hanging out her driver’s side window, and the jackass in the Buick who parked his car across three spaces, and the assholes walking in the middle of the lane so no one could get past, and the assmuncher behind me screaming at me that I was taking his space, (not to mention the four people who drove slowly behind me screaming at each other for the Rights to My Parking Space), the entire ordeal just, I mean, really …

… I read about the horror stories of the evacuation of those Texas cities. People running out of gas, getting into fistfights, all that shit. And I wonder just how often that kind of stupidity happens in garage parking lots because, oh my gosh, I’ve got to park an extra five spaces away.

In any case, with the lessons of why I have a shopping rule reinforced, let’s hope I don’t decide the urgent need to revisit that.