How disappointing.  You strode down the sidewalk to your car ready to go home to your favorite sitting spot to read that new book you heard about.  Strategically tucked under your arm title facing outward so the whole world could know how incredibly cultured you were.  Perhaps it struck you to show off your new cultural amenity by stopping in at a local coffee shop and putting yourself in some corner with a latte to read.  Let’s be honest, you only pretended to want to the read the book in solitude, in fact you only pretended to want to read the book at all. 

            So you sat down in this coffee shop with your latte or whatever and opened up the book and stared at the pages for a minute.  I’m sure you’re wowing the whole room with how cultured you are.  Really they’re all staring at you as you pretend to read this new book they’ve all heard so much about.  For your own sake you read a few words.  They’re so complicated and contrived this author must think she’s some kind of genius; you can’t believe people actually like this stuff.  All you can believe is how much you want to be like those people.  You’d never associate with them, they’re pretentious, they probably only like this new book because it makes them seem cultured.  You on the other hand are very special you like this new book because it’s “fresh” and “brilliant”.  Of course, you only pretend to think so.

            Because you’re really just as bad as all those posers in the $90 ripped jeans and it kills you, doesn’t it?  It just really kills you inside.  Let’s face it, you’re really not all that smart anyway.  You just like to think so.  You like to think you’re into Dickens and Faulkner, you say their books are “beautiful” and “well-conceived”.  You’d go so far as to use the word “masterpiece” because you really just don’t know any better.       

            So there you are sitting in this coffee shop with this book you really don’t plan on reading, but you’ll keep pushing it on people hoping they’ll turn it down because that’ll make you feel like a goddess among throngs of uncultured swine.  You’re a real winner, aren’t you?

            You give up, you take the latte and the book and you leave the coffee shop in shame as you’re sure everyone in the coffee shop is watching you leave after only a mere two minutes of reading.  You don’t even drink the latte; you don’t even like lattes. 

            You hop in your car, it’s a nice car with one of those cameras for when you back-up.  You put the latte in the cup-holder telling yourself today is the day to start liking coffee for real; you put the book on the seat beside you where you’d put a boyfriend if you had one.  But you don’t, no boyfriend, no culture, no taste, just this book that you won’t read and this latte you won’t drink.

            Home is the usual grind, everyone asks about your day and about that new book you just bought.  You tell your parents it’s “wonderful”, you’ll be done in a few days, its just that good.  You pawn if off to one of them, tell them they can “borrow it” if they want.  They agree, they’re so proud of their highly sophisticated daughter. 

            Instead of living up to expectations you go to your room and wallow away in sorrow as you mindlessly stare at that police procedural drama you love so much.  But you’re not paying attention, you never do, you just like the comfort of the noise.  Oddly enough, you’re okay with that.

            A noise comes from the staircase and you scramble to find the book again.  They’ll be expecting to see you reading, their perfectly cultured child.  You shut the TV, you crawl into a reading position with the book, you open to some random page and you stare at it intently.  Your Dad opens the door and bows out gracefully thinking you must be so engrossed in this new book he’s heard so much about. 

            And there you were lying in bed staring at that book you heard so much about.  And you want to be cultured and read it but at the same time there’s something holding you back.  Maybe you’re just not that smart.  Maybe you’re just not that cultured.  And it kills you, it really does.  As proof you really do deserve those ogles you get from the rest of the world when you walk by yielding that book they’ve heard so much about you actually start reading.  And it’s all very disappointing.

            This is not a story, proclaims the new book.  What a plot twist, right?  Pick up a book, ready to hear a brand new story with characters and romance and love and action and then… It’s none of those things.  Well, that can’t be right.  Books are stories after all, books are exoses of the human conditions, books are entertaining, books are inspiring and revealing and thought provoking.  But no.  This isn’t one of those kinds of books.

            You see, this book is about you.  Yes, you, the person in the favorite sitting spot holding the book.  Does this strike you as curious?  I assure you, my account of your life is nothing, if not fair.  It might not all be true but this is just a guessing game after all.  If you expected the moon and the sun from a wild shot in the dark at what your life is you’ve picked up the wrong book.

            Well, you’ve certainly picked up the wrong book regardless because as we’ve established this is not a story, certainly not the one you were looking for.  You only picked up this book because you heard about it from that professor or that friend or that guy on TV who looks he knows a thing or two about books.

            Well, I’m a problem book you see