The Doorstop
Jennifer Flaten

I am in desperate need of a break from managing our Netflix queue; it is turning into a full-time job.

Oh, so you don’t think it should be that hard to keep a list of movies sorted. Well, I disagree it requires constant vigilance.

Otherwise, before you know it, some D movie you put on the list when you were desperate winds up at the top of the list and arrives in your inbox.

Nothing is more disappointing then finding Ernest Saves Christmas Again, in your daily mail.

Okay, maybe the fact that Ernest would even be on your list is more disappointing. Just for the record I made that title up, I don’t really have it in my queue. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is such a movie, gawd help us all. 

Honestly, sometimes I look at a movie on the list and wonder, “What was I thinking.” Did I really mean to add an incomprehensible foreign film where everyone dies at the end to my list? Obviously, I didn’t put this stupendously bad film on the list; it must be the Netflix gnome.

Even worse, those times when I forget to massage the list around to ensure that a kid friendly movie is at the top of the list.

Friday comes and instead of a delightful animated movie for “family movie night,” we have a .5 star science fiction movie.

You think the ‘Wrath of Khan’ was bad. Try the wrath of little children denied a movie.

Anyway, now that the list is safe for the next couple of days I head off to the bookstore.

Well, not the bookstore, bookstore, I don’t think I need to tell you that I go to the used bookstore. Anyway, I cruise the aisles looking for the perfect book.

Picking a book to buy is so hard, I mean I don’t care if I get a dud from the library, but if I spend my own money to get a dud, I get very disappointed.

Alas, I am desperate for a book, so desperate the children’s Scooby-Doo library books are starting to look appealing, which means I am susceptible to a book’s pretty looks.

I spy a book with a nice cover. Hefting the big, I mean big, book off the shelf I wonder if perhaps in the spirit of multi-tasking the publishers have decided that the book can double as a doorstop.

I vaguely remember reading a favourable review of the book, which coupled with my anxiety over having noting to read, even for five minutes, leads me to buy the tome.

Besides, I could use a new doorstop; with that in mind, I lug it to the counter.

As I waded my way through the book, “The Passage,” by Justin Cronin, in case you too need a doorstop, I rethought my position on the e-book readers.

If I had an e-book reader not only would I not need a rub down with icy hot after reading the book, the damn thing is 766 pages, but I could delete it without a moment’s hesitation.

Honestly, if this book were a potential blind date I would tell you it had a nice personality. This just proves my ‘buy book in haste repent in leisure’ theory.

From now on anytime, I am desperate for something to read I am sticking with Scooby-Doo.