I've Been Reading a Lot Lately, and Now I'm Really Smart

TV is an awful, time wasting invention that we would all be better off without. And my poo sells for $100 a pound on eBay.

I have to be selective with my TV consumption. The trick is to not even start watching a show. Because, if I start, I feel obliged to finish. Not because I need to know which of the top ten female vocalists will once and for all suppress Simon's criticisms, but because I feel somehow incomplete as I lay in bed wondering. It's the same thing with any meal.

When I was smaller, I was always made to finished my dinner. I'd sit at an empty table, trying to choke down the frigidly cold steak chunks and decomposing vegetables. Without a family dog to remedy the situation, I was left to figure this one out myself.

Definitely once, but quite possibly twice each meal, I would stuff inedible food chunks into the sides of my mouth, chipmunk style, and excuse myself for a bathroom break. As soon as the door shut, I immediately filled the water cup, then I'd spit everything out while pouring a slow, steady stream of water into the bowl mimicking the sound of my ten year old urination, just in case my mother was suspicious and outside the door collecting clues.

For years I've been using the television as my main source of entertainment. Books would be asked for at Christmas and birthdays; Although started with a breath of excitement, each would end up with the others, a mere 30 pages or so read, neatly stacked on the nightstand, their bookmarks glaring at me every time I passed.

I took a few weeks off at the end of last year. I had good intentions to fall into an exercise routine, fix up the place, organize the hell out of everything, and read more. Embarrassingly, most of those things went undone. Days would pass and my schedule started to resemble that of someone working the night shift. However, I did manage to pick up one of those orphaned books and finish it, and then another. Two months later, I'm about to finish my 7th book. I can guarantee you I haven't read that much in the last decade. How did I do it? I take fake poos at work.

Sometimes it's just a chapter, other times, more. The biggest dilemma was not the obvious moral question of being on the clock, but whether or not to fake poo with my pants on, or off. The idea of sitting on the toilet pants on, seemed slightly more disgusting than the alternative. But it also seemed strange with pants off, since I did not have any deliveries. In the end, I found pants off was the way to go, but the slightest argument to the contrary could change my mind.

To get through a chapter, I've endured brown clouds that would make anyone cry. The loud talkers and the cell phone users irritated me immensely (keep it down, I'm fake pooing!) One patron of the pot found it impossible to turn off the faucet, after washing, which was so completely distracting, that I stopped mid chapter.

The writers strike was good for quelling my television consumption. Will I watch more and read less, now that the strike is over? Yes. But I will make this promise: To the books of the world, I promise to power through and finish each one of you that I start.

No more orphans. No book left behind.