reading interruptus

[meganbmoore]

meganbmoore peacefully sits there, reading Samurai Deeper Kyo and watching Hotaru, Akira and Benitora hack up an army of Mibu soldiers.

Random person meganbmoore is only passingly familiar with as a person who works in the building  and does not know  NEARLY well enough to be talking about bodily aches and pains sits down beside her and stares at the book for a moment.

Random Person:  "I think I did something to my arm but I don't know what." raises and wiggles arm a bit "It was fine yesterday but there's something wrong with it today.

meganbmoore looks at Random Person, then attempts to surreptitiously look around to see if she possibly misunderstands and realizes that not only is Random Person looking right at her, but there's no one else nearly close enough for her to misunderstand and makes polite noises.

Random Person:  "Do you ever have that happen to you?  Be just fine one day and then have some part of your body just hurt and not be able to move?"

meganbmoore is saved by actual work.  meganbmoore finishes actual work and politely checks to see if Random Person was waiting to talk to her some more.  Random Person is talking to someone else, so meganbmooreresumes reading.

10 pages later, during Important Character Reveal.

Random Person:  "So, do you do anything special for Halloween?"

meganbmoore:  "Well, I'm not a kid and don't have any, and I live in an apartment, so not really."

Inner meganbmoore: "GAAAAAH!!! 5000 of you psychotic swordsmen in this book, and not one of you will come to life and end this for your devoted fan?"

ETA:  In case it wasn't clear, the next person to "save" me from the "boredom" of reading may die...seriously.  I don't mind when it's my coworkers in my department because they know I 100% read by choice, so when they interrupt reading, I know it's only because they're bored stiff(and if it's that bad for them, I'm probably kinda bored myself.)

Comments

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

ARGH. I hate people like that. I hate my co-workers, too. But the hatred is mitigated by being able to come home and write porn.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

yup. it's probably my biggest pet peeve. i don't mind my IMMEDIATE coworkers because they only do it as an act of desperation.

[kingcrankycat.livejournal.com]

I'll mail you a katana that you can have by you at all times and gently massage whenever someone comes over to 'save' you. Hopefully they'll get the message.

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

I hate it when ppl do that. I mean if they turn only to books when they are bored, then so be it but they should stay the heck away from me when I read.
Something similar happened to me a few weeks ago while waiting for a friend in a cafe. Some guy at the neighbouring table desüerately needed someone to chat with and started to randomly chat with me while I was trying TO READ MY BOOK!!!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

It's a sad, sad thing that seeing a person reading is almost always equated now with being bored or not having anything to do. In this case, since they looked at the book, I suspect "Oh, you're reading some sort of comic? It must be really bad since no moderately intelligent person over 10 does that out of choice" factored into things. When I realized why she'd been looking at the book, I almost just set it aside and pulled out a hardcover that I started after reading it so she's get the point 9what I wouldn't have given at the moment for a George R.R. Martin giant brick with teeny text to get the point across.

The worst part is that there's a teeny guilt about getting mad over these things, because people are culturally conditioned to think they should do it out of kindness, and that they're doing you a favor.

[chomiji]

It's sad how many people, even nowadays, think reading for pleasure a useless occupation. Did you read Ballet Shoes as a kid? At one point, the three (adoptive) sisters are in the kitchen, where the Cook is teaching the eldest girl, Pauline, how to make buns, the housemaid is ironing, the youngest girl, Posy, is making animals out of pastry scraps, and the middle girl, Petrova, is reading. When the door bell rings, Petrova is the one sent to answer it, because in Cook's opinion, "reading is not an occupation."

I always take Petrova's side in that scene!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

nope, haven't read it.

that scene does pretty much represent what seems to be the world's general attitude on reading though.

*and since it was IN a book, I suspect we were meant to side with Petrova)