-quote from Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilan

I picked up this book at 6 AM in Dulles Airport. Later I paid for it and took it from the store. It was one of those bookstores where everything’s hardcover or a bestseller by a whored out ex-blogger in one of those softcover editions that still costs like $20. I think it must be the only way to apply airport price gouging pathologies to books, since books have a set price. This one is a hardcover.

It’s small and blue and I chose it by its cover which has one of those stick people from public restroom signs on it but the stick person is holding a gun to his head. I looked from it to The Devil Wears Prada which I am pretty sure had an ink drawing of a slender lady in high heels on it, and which I would actually like to read, and then I got this one. The bookstore worker was obviously relieved that I was leaving. She evidently thought I was deranged because I’d been wandering around the bookstore, which was approximately the size of three parking spaces, for ages and then I went and sat down for a while and while I was sorting through my wallet during my layover I found a gift card for the bookstore so I went back and looked for further ages. She was really patient with me, and airport workers are never patient unless they think You Have Problems.

You aren’t supposed to choose a book by its cover but I find that I often do. So. I have now read it. And it was a good choice.

It was really funny and I liked it a lot. Drifter Everyman with Teeth Problems. I laughed out loud multiple times and that was while reading it in the midst of jet lag combined with some kind of respiratory infection that makes my lungs feel like they are drowning in snot, which I noticed is green (or maybe puce) while hacking it up into an empty yogurt container at work. Narrator’s voice: stream of consciousness pottymouth. I love it.