Book Club
Eli 5.10 met a new friend. Her name is Mia, she's 6.5, and they are a perfect match.Interestingly, Mia's mother also seems like an excellent friendship match with Gloria.
"It was nice to have someone to talk about books with," Gloria said as we were eating dinner. "I've really missed that."
"That's great," I said. She could talk about books with me, but she reads fiction and I read mostly non-fiction. I read non-fiction so that I can throw in a bon mot whenever the subject of Nixon and Kissinger's secret diplomatic negotiations with North Vietnam are discussed at cocktail parties.
I'm basically just a maladjusted version of "The answer is Lebanon, Kansas."
And I digress, but fortunately, not while she was talking. Let's rejoin Gloria, in progress.
"I was in a book club and really enjoyed it," she said.
"Skin crawling," I said. "Blood running cold."
"Why?"
"The idea of sitting in a circle and talking about a book defeats the whole purpose of reading," I said. "I read to get away from people, not to hang out with them."
"Do you ever hang out with them anyway?"
"No," I said. "Well played."
"Well, everyone in the book club seemed to enjoy it," she said.
"No men," I said.
"There were men!" she said. "There were two."
"Trying to get laid," I said.
"That's not true."
"Every man in a book club should be required by law to wear a t-shirt that says 'TRYING TO GET LAID.' They should just get it out in the open.
"That's not true," she said. "There was a man who was married who just liked to read."
"Don't assume he wasn't trying to get laid just because he was married," I said.
"Well, he did wind up leaving his wife," she said.
"A shocking development," I said.
"Wait--she left him, actually. She asked him which of her friends he was attracted to, and he gave her a list of three."
"A list of three?" I asked. "Did he stab himself in the heart after he got finished reading out the names?"
Gloria laughed. "Maybe he should have," she said.
"Now I KNOW he was trying to get laid when he joined the book club," I said, "because he was clearly too stupid to read."
"He said he was trying to lessen the impact of giving her one specific person."
"Remember that story I showed you about the monk who went on the incredible seven year physical trial, and he took a length of rope and a sword, because if he failed he was supposed to kill himself?" I asked. "A married man should always carry a length of rope with him, and if he gets asked that question by his wife, he should hang himself."
Maybe that's why we wear belts.
<< Home