Reading Lessons

I was in one of those mini marts that one finds in the rest stops along the New Jersey Turnpike. I had bought the usual assortment of junk that one needs to stay awake from fatigue and boredom. While waiting for my driving companion to find me, I was looking at the paperbacks on sale. There was not much of a selection. In fact the titles were not new ones at all! Here are three that were right next to each other:

1. He's Just Not That Into You
2. There is No Prince Charming
3. Living Successfully with Screwed-Up People

Later that afternoon, I was in a grocery store with my sister and we were marching along looking for the things that were on her list. Just those things. I, on the other hand, am the sort of shopper who goes up one aisle and down the other, stopping to look at this and that, reading whatever product catches my attenton...sometimes murmuring things such as wow, no kidding, it really does this?

It's not that I don't follow a list. I guess it's just that I want a trip to the grocery store to be...AN EVENT. Something not so routine.

Anyway, as my sister and I were finishing with her list, we were coming upon a little girl who was holding open a children's book and obviously pretending to be reading. As we approached we heard this little girl say in a singsong lisp, and so the beautiful princess married the handsome prince and they lived happily ever after!

As we passed the little girl, my sister muttered, "And so the lie continues."

ALICE: WHAT! You mean that there really aren't Prince Charmings who are totally into us and have us live in castles with people who have their heads screwed on right?
SISTER: Is there such a thing as a Santa Claus?
ALICE: WHAT! There is no Santa Claus?
SISTER: Oh, grow up!
ALICE: WHAT! Haven't you ever read Peter Pan?

Well...um...to paraphrase Douglas Adams, there was a point to this story. But I've quite forgotten it.