Attention: All Is Not What It Seems

I recently just had my first real experience with buying porn.

It went something like this: I picked up the book off shelf, self-consciously tucked it under my arm, and tried to find the most sympathetic teenage check-out clerk that I could. My face was hot and red, and I wanted to sink through the cool white tiles beneath me. And when she scanned it, she looked at the cover and smiled up at me, "My friends are all into this, too."

Now my humiliation was on display. And I was going to have to converse about it.

"Oh really? Well, it is very entertaining," was what I said, smiling feebly.

I guess I must look wise, or maybe just like someone who might still be in college, because the checker asked me, "Do you recommend it?"

So I answered honestly and told her that I thought it was horrible writing, not realistic at all, and slightly disturbing.

And she looked at me, then back at the cover, like, then, what the hell is this?

I was actually getting a little sweaty by this point, like some Victorian guy who'd accidentally seen a pantaloon. I admitted that I was reading it in order to write a paper about it. Which was only true in the sense that I was thinking about trying to write a paper about it. But not true in the sense that I had no concrete plans to do anything except read the damn thing from cover to cover when I got home.

The Target check out girl then explained me that her friends had all tried to convince her to go see the movie, but as she put it, "Why would I want to go see a movie about some vampire romance? It sounded lame."

Smart girl. That DOES sound lame.

But I took the book with me when I left anyway. Because once you're in, you're in way too deep.

(More on the shame that is Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series in a bit.)