Big Books

This post is dedicated to the lovely Sara at Laments and Lullabies. 

She is the Salt to my Pepa, the DJ Jazzy Jeff to my Fresh Prince.  

Last week I was in the car with my girls and their friends, two older girls from down the street. Butt jokes were being made.  Naturally.  One of Emily’s pals says “I like big butts and I can not lie!”  Emily, too young to have ever heard Sir Mix-A-Lot at her eighth grade formal, began to guffaw. I am not certain where her friend had heard it but before I could stop myself the rest of the song was tumbling out of my mouth “You other brothers can’t deny that when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face you get sprung!!”  I may or may not have been dancing in my seat.  The girls in the backseat were laughing.  But her friend in the front seat was giving me the side eye.

“I love that song,” I said.  I hit play on my CD player and because Sir Mix-A-Lot’s Baby Got Back is the first track on Monster Booty Jams and because that CD has lived permanently in my car for a decade I knew it would immediately begin to play.   The girls got quiet and listened.  “This song is the best,” I said.

“They only talk to her, because, she looks like a total…” and I hit stop.  “Actually, this song might not be a listen-to-it-with-someone-else’s-mother kind of song.”

So when the picture above came through my Facebook feed I was primed and ready for a Baby’s Got Back inspired giggle.

And just like those kids in my car I really need only the smallest amount of encouragement.

My friend, Sara, said “You other readers can’t deny.” (Yeah, that’s right.  My pal, Sara, of Laments & Lullabies fame!) And we were off to the races.

Day 97 of This Book Will Change Your Life told me to become a rapper.  Ummm.  Done.  Check, Checkity check check… the MIC!

Me: When a book walks in with a nitty gritty theme and puts those word things in my face I get sprung!

Sara:  ‘Cause you notice that book was stuffed, Deep in the shelves of learnin’, I’m hooked and I can’t stop turning, Pages, I wanna get with ’em … And take their ISBNs

Me:  Oh. My. God. Becky, look at that book. It’s SO good. It’s, like, on the best seller list. But who even reads, anyway? They only buy it because Oprah said so.

Sara: Slow in the middle but it’s got a lot of plot.

Me:  I’m tired of magazines. Saying paperbacks are the thing. Take a librarian and ask her that – she says microfiche are where it’s at!

Sara: So, readers! (Yeah!) Readers! (Yeah!) Has your library got the book? (Hell yeah!) Tell ’em to stock it! (Stock it!) Shelve it! (Shelve it!) Check out that hefty book! ‘Brary got books!

Me: So you can’t put down that novel, to get fed your kids got to grovel. But the novel don’t care if your house is a hovel. My intellect don’t want none unless you’re classic lit, hon!

Sara:  But I gotta be straight when I say I wanna *read* Till the break of dawn Book’s got it goin’ on…