Rummel: Why is there a book on this car?

I want so badly to know what is going on here. Or, at least, get confirmation.

Occasionally, I walk to and from work in Seattle. As you might imagine, I see some weird stuff walking through the city, especially Capitol Hill.

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This week, though, I saw something that was the most perplexing so far: a paperback copy of the Harper Lee classic “To Kill a Mockingbird” placed under a Prius windshield wiper.

I had so many questions. Do the two parties involved know each other? Did the car owner need a lesson on racism and the justice system? It was raining that day, why didn’t they have the forethought to put the book in a plastic bag? Why that specific book? Is there a new SPD initiative where they’ve stopped giving out parking tickets and started giving out classic novels?

My curiosity was seriously triggered, but I didn’t have any ideas on how to figure out what was going on. Even if I waited for the car’s owner to return, there’s a chance he or she would be just as confused as me.

So, I asked the Internet and it didn’t let me down.

I posted a photo to my Twitter account, and early on most of the responses I got were jokes.

@MeGustaBailar10 wrote, “Rumors say Boo Radley drove a Prius.”

@NicoleHensley responded, “Maybe it’s like a little library — for cars.”

My favorite response was from @Mazzei48, he or she (sorry, not sure of the gender based on the profile) suggested the book was maybe “A warning to any seagulls who may want to paint the car white.” I love the idea the book was some type of passive aggressive threat to birds. This presupposes birds both have the ability to read and also the ability to pick up on implicit malice.

Then I started receiving some sincere responses. @MariahHanley tweeted at me “Yesterday was Hide a Book Day.”

This was news to me, so I did some googling.

Apparently, there’s this website called Goodreads, it’s a kind of social media for book-lovers where they can share and recommend books to friends. As part of the site’s 10-year-anniversary on September 18th, they planned an international Hide a Book Day.

The idea was people would hide extra copies of their favorite books in interesting places to try to promote reading and literacy.

It seems like Mariah is probably right, although Goodreads does recommend hiding the books somewhere they won’t get wet, advice this particular book-hider didn’t follow.

I was actually kind of bummed out by this, it seemed like the most boring possibility. It’s like when you find out how a magic trick works.

If you have a better theory as to what’s going on here (even though I’m pretty sure I figured it out) let me know in the comments. If it’s interesting or funny enough, I’m totally willing to pretend it’s true for my own entertainment.

Also, a final note: I walked to work again this morning and I saw the book in the bushes near where the car was the day before. Presumably, the Prius owner returned to the car, and just threw the book off to the side. It’s possible we were all wrong to believe the stereotype that Prius owners care about the environment.

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