Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Embarrassing Conversations with My Children, Part XIV

Wendy's family just left town. Wendy is out of town on a business trip. My parents are coming in to visit on tomorrow. That means that for about 26 hours, the boys and I have the house to ourselves. To celebrate, we did our ritualistic trip to Barnes & Noble. First we eat lunch, and then we go into the Children's Literature section where we sit in our secret corner to read books.

To my sons' frustration, we don't make a direct route from the food area to the kids' books area. I stop by the Audiobooks section, the Fiction & Literature section*, and either the WWII section or the Adventure Books section, with Max grabbing my hand and saying, "Come on, Dad!"

Today, Luke pointed at the cover of a book and got excited.

"Dad! Dad!" he said. "M. C. Hammer! It's M. C. Hammer!"

"No, that's Barack Obama."

"Oh."

Two women laughed behind me. One of them was black. I was speechless.

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* Barnes & Noble has a crappy Fiction & Literature section. Sure, it's about the same as Borders, but when you go into a decent bookstore, and I'm not talking about a fantastic bookstore like Powell's or Elliot Bay -- I'm just talking about your average independent bookstore -- the Fiction section is always richer.

And here's one of my pet peeves. Barnes & Noble puts in a ton of furniture when a store first opens, and then they slowly take most of the comfy chairs away. On the Soul Rating Scale, Burger King and Barnes & Noble are in the same category. Therefore, in honor of my sister-in-law who recently shaved her head bald to get a tattoo of a chakra pyramid that will open her third eye, I am hereby sending negative vibes towards the Barnes & Noble executives. Deal with that!

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