Sunday, April 27, 2008

Next Stop: The Monsters of Literature Cage Match Between Faulkner and Whitman

Picture this: It’s 7:30 on a Saturday night. You’re at the mall, standing on the edge of the center fountain, taking photographs of the Rock Band competition that is taking place on the stage in front of you because a co-worker has the chutzpah and wherewithal to stage this special kind of library crazy. You’re surrounded by a huge crowd of people, most of them teenage boys. You’re wearing your best AC/DC t-shirt and you’re cheering the bands on. People keep coming up to you asking how they can sign up to be a part of the action. You’re texting your friends to let them know that you are at the mall on a Saturday night playing Rock Band and that you feel that you finally have the popularity that you deserved many years ago (this feels remarkably like the time you staged the library card sign up visitations at the local elementary schools and you worked the kids up so much that they were giving you high-fives as you left the building-I’ve not been asked back since then…). Then you realize that you’re 38 years old, it’s nearing your bedtime and that the Chick-Fil-A chicken nuggets you’re smelling are starting sound like a perfectly natural dinner choice for the evening (even at this late hour).

Who needs therapy?

1 comment:

Eric Wright said...

Here is the thing, the rock band extravaganza was probably the coolest thing going on in Gadsden at the time. But wait-bedtime? What are you, 9?