Saturday, December 11, 2010

I can either Smile or Lie. Take your pick.

All right. Let's start off with a video shall we?



I hope that disturbed you as much as it did me. Oh yes, it made me mad. Mad I say! I think, no, I KNOW I yelled at the TV the first time I saw that commercial. I mean, seriously... "Once upon a time there were books." !!!!! Are you kidding me!?!? Um... books still exist! In fact, there are entire buildings dedicated to them. They're called Libraries. And I think heaven is a giant one. I love books. I love how they look, I love how they feel, I love how they smell. Yes, smell. I especially love reading them. Entire afternoons of my childhood were devoted to climbing the tree in my backyard with a book in my hand and staying there reading it until it was too dark out to see the words on the page. I started out with Mercer Mayer and the Zipparumpazoos in elementary school and ended up with Terry Brooks and the Shannara series by Junior High. Yeah, I was a reader. So the implication that books no longer exist, or are passe and inferior to the new E-readers makes me a trifle .... irked. So, needless to say, I have issues with E-readers. As in, I dislike them. Intensely. Someone could try to make an argument that an E-reader with colorful animation and engaging audio makes reading more interesting for children. But my question to them is, is that really considered reading? I mean, if the attention is on moving pictures and sound um,.... isn't that ... TV? As in, not reading. How can anyone learn to love words, learn the value of word choice and word play, learn to create entire worlds with nothing but letters, when they're not really reading? The answer is: they can't. And that lack of appreciation for the written word by an entire generation saddens me enormously.

But something happened over the Thanksgiving break that made me happy. Or rather, enforced my belief that people, in general, are good. I was driving from Tennessee to Kentucky and accidentally locked my keys in my car at a gas station. Not my proudest moment. (And I'm not entirely sure how I managed it, as I had to unlock the door to get out and pump gas, but....anyway) The guy who ran the gas station came out and tried to use a coat hanger to unlock the door. Two other people drove up and tried to help. Three other people who drove up also tried. None were successful, but they tried to help. A woman in the laundry that was attached to the gas station offered to drive me back to Smyrna to get my set of spare keys. When I said that was too far for her to drive, she called a friend who had a slim jim car opener and drove there to get it. She brought it back and tried it. It didn't work. Another man, who happened to be a mechanic, drove up and tried to open the door with a sturdier coat hanger. He couldn't get it either. He said mine was the first car he'd run across that he couldn't open. An older gentleman then came by and let me use his phone after I remembered my mother had signed me up for AAA. He even offered to buy me lunch or something to drink while I waited for them to come. I said I was ok, but thanked him anyway. While I was sitting in the laundry waiting for AAA to call, the gentleman came back and handed me a sweater. He said he had driven to a christan run used clothing store down the road. I thought that was so nice of him, as I was extremely cold. (It was drizzly and my coat was locked in the car) So, people are good and I have an ugly blue sweater with brown leaves on it to prove it.

I'm not sure I deserve such kindness, though. I am an awful person where giving to charity is concerned. And by awful I don't mean that I don't donate money, but that they probably wish I didn't. Let me explain. I was driving home from ... somewhere one day and was listening to my mp3 player rather loudly when I saw the volunteer firefighters in my neighborhood on the side of the road trying to raise money. It's a worthy cause, so I roll down my window spend a few moments trying to get some money out of my wallet and hand it to them with a smile on my face. It was only after I drove away that I realized what had been blaring out of the speakers the entire time I was being philanthropic. The Bad Touch by the Bloodhound Gang. Yeah, It's kind of a dirty song. Yeah, I was listening to it. No, it's not typical of the music I listen to. But, it was what happened to be playing wile I was trying to do a good deed. It made me feel like a bad person. I forced my perversion on unsuspecting people. Good men and women who were just trying to raise money so they can keep me and the rest of the neighborhood safe. Yeah, I'm evil. I think the good karma from donating money was canceled out by the bad karma of assaulting someone's ears. But, on the upside, if I ever need to be rescued I've paid for it darn it. If they weren't offended and upset enough to let me burn, that is.

But let's go back to the themes of Words and Thanksgiving, shall we? I created a new word with my brother and cousins over the Thanksgiving break. Stresstipated. Shut up. It's a good word. Definitely should be added to the dictionary, or at least to the popular lexicon. My brother was saying how my cousin just held all his stress inside and didn't express it. I said that he was Stresstipated. I thought it was an apt expression. Everyone laughed and agreed that it was a good word anyway. So, yeah. Now I'm up to two words of my own invention. Flustrated and Stresstipated. Go me. I rock words socks off like sugar rocks mine. I think I'm going to make cookies tomorrow. Last Sunday was national cookie day, and I didn't make any. I was remiss.

2 comments:

  1. I am with you that I love the books when comes to reading something...not kindle, not palm, not computer...I want to hold the book and enjoy the real book smell...so my husband suggested that I use kindle to read while having a book sitting on my lap to smell...
    "Stresstipated" ... that's a great one.

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  2. Hettar, I just want to stop by to wish you and yours a happy and prosperous 2011! :-))
    Angie

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