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I Love My Socks 6/7/2007 6:30:29 AM
Of all the articles of clothing I own, I love my socks the best. They’re so easy to put on you can do it in the dark. There is very little chance that you’ll put them on backwards, or that you’ll put your foot in the wrong hole. My socks don’t aggravate or frustrate, they sit there quietly covering my feet.
Lately, I’ve been reading books that lack the manners of socks. They aggravate, frustrate and some even agitate. At the end of the day, after usually ten or more hours of working, I sit in my grandma’s rocker to read. My goal is to unwind from the ever increasingly tense world for a few hours, but for the last few weeks that has not happened.
I won’t name the books that I wanted to throw at the wall, because I’m not a reviewer. The first one entertained and moved along until the end when a character I had grown to like suddenly becomes a crazed murderer. If that wasn’t bad enough, this person who had been quite sensible throughout the book, put a bullet in her head when she couldn’t get away.
The protagonist of the next book, a female detective, had an almost psychopathic personality. I didn’t warm to her quickly, and by the end of chapter 1, wanted to slap the daylights out of her. By the third chapter, I had ground my teeth so hard I had to put the book down, or make an appointment with a dentist. I thought my luck would improve but I was wrong.
The third book had a very innocuous title and cover. I thought, ‘great, a cozy. That’s just what I need’. It’s true. You can’t judge a book…. In the first chapter, a killer, who served five years in a mental institution for killing and dismembering a woman, finds himself freed. So naturally, he goes to a dinner party where the woman who testified against him is a guest. Everyone at the party knows who he is and no one stops him from entering because he ‘paid his debt.’ Give me a break! The woman and her husband go home and their son calls. The husband leaves to pick him up, and the wife stays home alone with the killer just next door. Guess what happens next.
We all have different tastes in literature, as we should. I’m sure many would enjoy the books I described. I read to relax, to unwind so that I can deal with a sometimes difficult and challenging world. I don’t read to be aggravated, frustrated, or agitated. I could watch television for that. I love to read, and I love to feel satisfied when I close the cover of a book, and, I love my socks.
