Back when I was little, a kid who sat on the couch all day and played video games or watched TV was called a couch potato. I wouldn’t say this was a fashionable thing to say – especially if the kid in question was overweight – but I’m confident this was a popular enough parenting technique based on all the friends I have now who report being accused of such a thing at one time or another during their childhoods.
Now, a double standard came into play if the kid was reading. A kid who read on the couch all day rarely got any grief. I suppose adults considered reading too important an activity to openly compare a reading child to a vegetable.
This isn't the only double standard I've noticed when it comes to reading. Another example comes in the context of hygiene. I know, for example, how it is considered important to wash my hands whenever I leave the bathroom (1). I understand why this is the case. But I’m never encouraged to wash up after a chapter of reading.
Think about it - surely, my hands after I read library books are dirty? Most of these books have been in circulation long enough to pass through multiple sets of hands. I bet some of these books have even gone into the bathroom for a little bit of reading while… well, you know what, reader. Everyone talks about how filthy the support poles and hand-rungs of public transit are; when I read on the train, I touch those poles and rungs first, then hold my book. Transit-ive property, anyone?
It’s possible I’m on to something big here, reader. In a world where we worry about swine flu and carry pocket-sized bottles of hand sanitizer, perhaps I’ve discovered yet another benefit to getting all my books out of the library: free immunity. Every book I read is like a booster shot!
So, to those of you out there who struggle with colds or sniffles or whatever, my recommendation is to read. And not just read anything: read library books. Read the oldest, dirtiest volumes you can find. Slow, constant exposure is the only way to build up the immune system.
For the truly desperate, don’t mess around with Twain or Dickens or Austen: go straight to the children’s room, find every Curious George book you can, and start reading. By the time your fingers are bleeding from turning so many pages, you will have accumulated all the disease-repelling power imparted on these books from the snot-nosed, spittle-spraying sneeze-machines that usually spend their free time engrossed in the monkey’s irrelevant adventures.
Footnotes / something I'll probably never do in my entire life
1. I'll probably find out next week why this happens...
Reader, some people are so concerned about hygiene that they wash their hands before going to the bathroom. I'm still figuring that one out.
