In which I quit and I don’t care

It is always a good sign when a Teacher Record Day begins with an email from the boss that says that he won’t be in the building that day. For those of you unschooled in the fine art of I ain’t sayin, but I’m sayin, what that means is “Get your shit done and go home,” and every single person on the staff knew it. So, because one thing I have done well this year is stay on top of my grading, I was out the door before 11:00, heading over to the comic shop and realizing just before entering the parking lot that the place wouldn’t even be open for another fifteen minutes.

So it was a good day at work today, is what I’m saying.

And then I got home and discovered a roaring argument going on on Twitter, where some dumb bastard who I won’t pile on any further had decided to posit that putting down a book that you weren’t enjoying instead of finishing it was some sort of character flaw, and I got to watch that person evolve their position as the entire fucking Internet fell on her head, from “this is offensive behavior” to “look at all these mean people” to “OMG get a life!!one!! why are you on Twitter if you don’t read litratcher,” and as far as I know she’s deleted her account by now, or at least she’s deleted from my account, as I’ve blocked her for preemptive stupidity and have already forgotten her stupid, stupid name.

And, look, I’m about the thousandth (literally) person to point this out, but no reader owes any author even a second of their time, much less their actual leisure time, and I will quit reading a book over the Goddamned font or the kerning if I feel like it. I already gave the author my money, which entirely ends their part in the transaction; they are not entitled to any more of my time than I choose to give them. There have been books I was not enjoying that I chose to force my way through; there have been books I gave up on in the last 10%, and there have been books that made it clear that I wanted nothing to do with them in the first few chapters. Unless I go out of my way to make sure the author knows I didn’t finish their book, there’s no universe where the author gets to be offended or even have a damn opinion on whether I finished their book.

(I feel the same way about my books. Once they’re in your hands they’re yours. I would love it if everyone who bought one of my books read and enjoyed them, and I’m sorry if you don’t, but there’s no way your opinion about– or treatment of– the book offends me.)

The fact that all this is happening while I’m trying to read Heinlein again is a fun lil’ coincidence, for sure. I have a bad relationship with this dude to begin with, but when I found out he was from Missouri I asked my wife to recommend another book (I’ve read Time Enough for Love and Starship Troopers and I think I’ve started and bailed on one more) and she handed me her copy of The Puppet Masters, and I made it to page 100 last night and we will see if I finish it or not. The dude was a creep and he wrote books about creeps. I’ll try and finish it tomorrow, since I’ve got the day off, but I’m not going to stress about it if I don’t, and since Heinlein’s ass is dead he doesn’t get to be offended either way.