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Why we read
"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?"
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?"
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