Throwing Poo

I have recently developed a sense of urgency to begin completing all those important things in life that I have been putting off.  In other words, I’m getting old.  The good news is that over the years I have been stung by reality enough to recognize that some things simply do not belong on my list anymore.  Training to be the world’s most feared cage fighter, touring with the Rolling Stones, doing two chicks at once – these are the humid dreams of a testosterone-fueled man-child that wears size 32 jeans.  They have no place on the to-do list of an adjustable rate mortgage holder obsessed with the daily pursuit of all things fiber.

Still, the list is daunting.  I once learned is a time management seminar that the best way to get a lot done is to do the thing you are dreading most first.  Even though I didn’t get married until I was 39, I think this is still good advice.  So it was four months ago when I began my quest to read Moby Dick, cover to cover.  Not the cliff notes, not just the chapters about Ahab, every last hard blown word. 

“Ugh,” she cringed.  “You’re not going to read that, are you?” she said, as if she had caught me picking a half-eaten Eskimo Pie out of a dumpster and studying it with intent.  

“It’s Moby Dick,” I explained.   

“It’s god-awful.  The worst.”

“It’s a classic.”   

She reached for the dictionary.  “Hmm, classic.  Let’s see.  Here it is.  Classic – of the highest rank.”  Snapping the book shut with one hand, she continued. “Yep.  Rank is the word I would use.  The highest rank.” 

Unlike most sit-com marriages, my wife and I have a strong mutual respect for each other and, as a result, I tend to win my fair share of arguments.  This is a fact she would readily acknowledge.  Relative success, though, can often create a condition where a person forgets the very specific circumstances that lead to it and begin to think he is smarter than he really is.  So it was when I proceeded to argue books with a lit major/lawyer. 

“Have you ever even read it?” I asked accusingly. 

“I couldn’t get through it!  No one in my class could either.  It’s long-winded and completely self-indulgent.  It’s painful for me to even think about it.”   

Truly surprised by her visceral expression of hatred, I assumed she was just experiencing a moment of irrationality.  Naturally, sensing weakness, I pounced. 

“Maybe you just didn’t get it.  Me, I’m gonna read it.”

She stared at me for a moment and shrugged, the way my dad use to do right before I did something like lick a frozen metal ice cube tray.

“Well then, you’re a better person then me.  Good luck with that.”  She turned and left the room. 

It wasn’t quite the tone I was hoping for.  I stood there for a moment, a little confused, when my shoulder began to ache from the weight of the book.  

Several months later, I’m officially throwing in the towel.  “No mas, no mas.”   The first few weeks I had made a valiant effort.  Page after page I struggled, like I was tunneling out of prison with a spoon.  After a while, I stopped reading altogether and resorted to strategically moving the book from room to room to keep up appearances.  Now I just want it out of my sight so that the taunting inside my head will begin to fade.  The only remnant is a mild curiosity about the possible irony in my inability to finish a book about an all-consuming obsession. 

I look at it this way.  There are the things we want to be and the things we want to do.  I want to be someone who has read Moby Dick but I don’t want to use my time to read Moby Dick.   I guess I’d rather do the things I know I enjoy rather than try to become something that I think I’d enjoy being.  Goodbye Melville, hello Mel Brooks.