I recently finished a mammoth book.  It was 566 pages about an Argentine family from the 1940’s through the present day.  If I’m being forthcoming with you, it was actually 19 discs.  I listen to audiobooks sometimes even though some people think it’s cheating.  They’re the exact same words, people!

About 16.5 discs into the book, things went horribly awry.  The main character changed into a completely remorseless hussy out of (almost) nowhere.  It’s not like she became a psychopath, more like a really big jerk.  By the time we got to that point, it was way too late to quit reading/listening to the book.  I had already committed about 19 hours of my life to that story, so what was a few more?

Then the main character of another book I’m reading became an actual sociopath last night.  I mean, he was a sociopath all along, but he started acting on his crazy tendencies at about page 100.

And when I turned on a movie during breakfast the other day, I thought I was settling in for scenes from pre-Civil War Appalachia.  Nope.  It starts off in the middle of the trenches, as hundreds of men are blown to smithereens and burned alive and generally destroyed.

All of that to say that I’m really glad I’m not in front of a book or a TV today.  I’m at a beach, talking to people who hopefully aren’t psychopaths, sociopaths, or Civil War veterans.  People usually read to escape from their lives for a while.  I’m living life to escape the scary people in my books for a while.