Who Needs a Special Month?

May is "Get Caught Reading Month"  But I ask you, who needs a special month designated for such a thing as this?  For me, every day is a get caught reading day!  And I like it that way!!  No special day or month, no particular reason, no designated time of day (or night).  Any old time is a good time to get caught reading if you ask me!

I was the kid who hung out at the library all day long then carried an arm-load of books home, and then spent half the night reading by flashlight under the bedcovers so as not to get caught reading "after bedtime."
And in some ways, I'm still that kid... well, kid-at-heart at least.  There's no more worry about getting caught reading under the covers after lights out.  Although some mornings I wish there had been such an imposition on my reading time.  (Those are the mornings when I kept telling myself one more chapter the night before  -- only thing is, one more chapter became another and another until the book's end and before I knew it the alarm was sounding.) 

Living alone (although that is soon to change as one of my daughters is coming to live with me in about 10 days) I frequently go out to eat with my "dinner date" -- my book!  Some people would never go out to eat alone.  But if I don't do that, I rarely get to go out to eat at all.  So, I go and enjoy my meal and my book at the same time. 

After church today, I went to lunch with book in hand.  After being seated I pulled out my book and began to read.  My salad was served and I enjoyed every morsel of it almost as much as I enjoyed every word on every page. 

Near the end of my meal, a woman at a nearby table leaned over and said "That must be some book!  You've been totally engrossed in it ever since we sat down.  I hope we didn't bother you too much."  I suppose she was concerned that her large family had been too loud or distracting to me.  But, to be perfectly honest with you, I didn't have a clue who was sitting nearby.  I assured her that (a) the book was very good and (b) her family didn't bother me in the least.

She went on to ask the title of the book.  When I shared it with her, she told me that she worked for the county library doing the cataloging of all new books and she hadn't heard of this title.  I went on to explain that it was a pre-release copy I'd received from Story Circle Network's Book Review and that it would soon be available to the public.   So much for my reading time - I'd been caught reading and that had elicited a conversation.  That conversation led to a discussion about one of my other passions in life - Story Circle Network.  At the end of the conversation, I gathered up my book and retreated to my apartment where I continued to read... and to get "caught" reading a couple more times when family members called and asked "What are you doing today?"  My response came as no surprise to them.  They are used to catching me reading.  They know I'd read 24/7/365 if I could!

Today, like every other day, is a get caught reading day - and I wouldn't have it any other way!