Why we read

[resonant]

"The recycling bins have to go out tonight," I say to the spouse as he prepares to go back to work after dinner.

We've got a windchill of twenty below here, and on the ground there's about two inches of snow with a half-inch of ice on top. There's no actual sidewalk down to the alley where our recycling gets picked up; you have to slither down a small hill carrying a box the size of a coffin cut in half the short way, which has been laden with old newspapers, and then come back for an identical box filled with plastic, glass, and metal..

"Well," I say to him, "you can pretend that you're in a Siberian work camp."

His eyes light up! He flings his scarf over one shoulder with a theatrical flair and says, in what I assume is meant to be a Russian accent, "Ivan, I do not believe in God, but I shall suffer and perhaps then I shall understand!" And then he staggers off into the snow with two weeks' worth of newspapers and empty milk jugs.

Remember that when someone asks you, "What's the practical use of reading literature?"

Comments

[laurakaye.livejournal.com]

I ♥ him.

And really, isn't everything better when you can pretend you're in a Siberian work camp? Or an orphanage? Or a derelict space station? Or you can pretend you're a detective undercover as a maid? Or that you're a crime scene technician, and when you're through vacuuming you're going to go through the bag for fiber evidence?

...or maybe that's just me.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Have you read the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books? Where she gets the girls to do the dishes by pretending that they're princesses kidnapped by a wicked witch, and the witch will have to let them go if they get the entire kitchen spotless?

I confess that sometimes when I'm dusting I pretend to be a tornado.

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Haven't read the books in question but I often pretended that I was a servant girl in a large palace, spying on courtiers and whatnot. I also used to make bunkers and trenches out of kitchen chairs, sofa cushions, and bedposts.

And tents too, of course. I also lived in my closet for a month or two when I was little, just because it was small and cozy and den-like.