Lunch Date

I have a soft spot in my heart for hypothetical questions. I often wonder why people chose to talk about the weather or grocery store or game when they could instead ponder the likes of: If any deceased human's collected knowledge and experience was yours for the taking, whose mind would you take and why? Or if it was in your power to save One and only one endangered species but all other endangered species would die off, which animal would you choose? Or if you could learn when and how a single future events of your life will transpire (and it could not be changed by your knowing) what event would you choose? (I'm just getting warmed up. Feel free to offer answers to these questions. I really enjoy hearing responses) I usually ask Aaron a half dozen of these puppies right as he starts to drift off.

I've always enjoyed these sorts of questions so you can imagine my delight when I found out about the college application process, particularly the essay prompts. Finally questions that were worth answering! and I had an audience! I loved running those prompts through my head, adjusting my response and extrapolating the outcome. I seriously considered applying to more schools just to get a crack at a few more delicious questions.

Since it's one of the most common, I spent a fair amount of time on: If you could meet with three famous people for lunch, who would you meet and why? Despite my question love, I found this prompt a bit unnerving.

For one, I never go out to lunch. Add to that, I'm fairly reserved and I don't usually like to speak much to people on first meeting. And I usually make really bad first impressions (just ask my in-laws) I knew I would make a TERRIBLE lunch date. To top it all off, there was the despair that no matter my agonizing, it would never happen.

But I've found a solution to my problem and it was right under my nose the whole time. Waa-laa! (Aaron is pressuring me to change this to Voila! the dirty francophile) The ESSAY! Essays are brilliant, synthesized musings of great thinkers. Essayists pours out opinions, offers meditations, dispenses advice, relates personal and professional experiences and do their darndest to be as entertaining or intellectually illuminating as possible in the process.

In short, reading an essay is in my mind the equivalent of going on the perfect date with Renee Descartes or Mark Twain or John Muir or Rachel Carson or Richard Rodriguez or a hundred other amazing human beings. With minimal work, the greatest minds are at your finger tips, vying for your affections.

So next time you're feeling a little lonely, consider picking up an essay.

But you don't have to take my word for it. Da-da- da! (That's the Reading Rainbow music) By the way Reading Rainbow just got taken off the air. Which is a TRAVESTY!! Good bye little rainbow butterfly!