Actual conversation I overheard in a used bookstore today between two 14-15 year-old boys.
Boy #1: Thanks for taking me here, dude! I've never been in a bookstore. I like this place.
Boy #2: Ya, it's okay. They have that book here I told you about. The one with that late night TV guy on the cover.
Boy #1: Jay Leno?
Boy #2: No. That guy! (Pointing to a copy of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America) Look around. There's books about everything.
Boy #1: (Wide-eyed now and in complete wonder) You're right! Here's a book about Quinten Tarantino.
Boy #2: (Wanders over to the sports section) Here's some books about baseball.
Boy #1: Cool!
Boy #2: (Picks up a copy of The Baseball Gods: A Ball Player's Metaphysical Guide to Playing Better Baseball and tries reading the title aloud but stumbles over the word "metaphysical")
Boy #1: (Laughs)
Boy #2: Fuck this. Lets get out of here.
Boy #1: Why? I like this place.
Boy #2: I like reading on my computer. If I don't understand a word I can just click on it and look it up online.
Boy: #1: Ya, you're right. But this place is cool.
Both boys walk out of the bookstore and although I'm laughing to myself I'm also thinking, yep. Boy #2 has a point.
I'm also remembering the days when you had to pull out a heavy dictionary and wade through pages trying to find just one word. Some 30 years ago - at age 13 or 14 - I asked my mother for a dictionary for my birthday and she agreed. I was in awe of the enormous blue book that I was gifted and I can still feel the weight of it in my arms. I loved randomly flipping pages and discovering new words that I'd never heard of or seen before. It honestly seemed like a magic book to me full of ancient spells and archaic wisdom. And in many ways I suppose it was.
In retrospect I'm just really grateful that we actually had a dictionary in our house. I knew a lot of kids who didn't and I suspect that those two kids I overheard in the bookstore today don't have one in their home but at least they have a computer.
