Fine, Yea, I'm a snot...

I’m sitting in Starbuck’s near my favorite place in Boston having my favorite (and only) Starbuck’s snack: caramel macchiato and a slice of pumpkin bread. These are just warm, autumn flavors that always seem to bring me to peace and after yet another interview, that’s exactly what I need.

It would be perfect if I either had some patience of these two girls weren’t sitting across from me.

They’re from Tufts, as I heard them boast earlier, and in sorority, as I gathered from the Greek letters smeared across everything they owned. And they talked like your stereotypical sorority girl, too many “like”s and “as if”s and “whatever”s and “Oh My Gods!”s.

So I don’t really like girls. That’s old news. But I can still (usually) tolerate their existence and understand that just because I don’t apply make-up 8 times a coffee or obsess about my hair or clothes or boys or gossip doesn’t mean they’re wrong. It’s just different. Just don’t be a stupid girl and talk about something I love and know something about – like books. Like these girls are.

They were doing fine just talking about their lives. But they eventually shifted to homework to classroom texts and then to novels for pleasure reading. (I was half-surprised they even knew how to read.) After a good five-minute rant on why Harry Potter sucks, the girl facing me swallowed a bit of non-fat drink and said, “You know what like bothers me like so much though?” I gathered it was a rhetorical question; there was no space in her breath for a reply. “When like I’m on the train or whatever with all these commuter and stuff and like I see an adult like coming home from work and reading Harry Potter or whatever. Like, that’s a kid’s book or whatever.”

She continued bashing the book series for another moment or two and then obviously caught my absolute look of disgust and shocked hilarity as I was staring at her from across the table. (I’m not very good at being subtle.) She stumbled over her words and finished with, “I mean, not like I’ve read them or anything so like maybe I don’t know or whatever…”

And her little friend, whose back was to me, did a perfect flick of her long blond hair and replied, “Yea, but it’s like not as bad as when like one of these adults reads like Lord of the Rings or something. I mean that’s a story for little boys only, you know!” and then quickly added, “Yea, not like I’ve bothered to read them either though, you know.”


Apparently they weren’t clued into the fact that the Lord of the Rings stems greatly from Tolkien’s experience in World War I. Or maybe they did and just thought war stories weren’t meant for grown-ups.


But even if these “grown-ups” are reading “kids’” books, what’s so wrong with that? As children, we were the most free-spirited, open-minded, and optimistic that we’ll ever be, always trying to make the best out of this world. Children’s books cater to these attitudes. They are inspirational and enlightening, like Le Petit Prince or The Alchemist. Every “adult” should read these works now and then simply as a refresher, a reminder that life is beautiful.

And what’s so wrong if an adult, overwhelmed by important decisions and unfathomable stress and the burdens of the “real world” chooses to escape, to take an hour break each day, and read something silly or creative on the commute home? What’s so bad if Harry Potter takes this businessman or –woman off into his fictional, fantasyland where magic sores away with one’s imagination?


I have never exercised such strength as I am now, keeping my mouth shut and listening to these two blabber on about books, butchering some of the best novels ever written.