Two for the weekend (Rawk!)

I am a hick.

I know, y'all might THINK I'm erudite and educated and some other e-word I can't think of right now (the front runners being esophageal and ephemeral, which describes a certain man-fantasy but not really me so much, thanks for asking), but really, I'm a hick.

Know why?

No?

Well tough darts, farmer, if you didn't want to know but instead wanted to hear about the whole esophageal thing (cut it out!), because I'm going to tell you why I am a hick.

I'll pause for you to ask me, right here. Why, Tiff, why are you a hick?

Because, y'all, today was the day that my Barnes & Nobles cherry was picked (Popped? Again, whatever. If you're going to make smutty inferences from every.single.thing.I.write, then god bless ya I'll be here til Thursday).

Read it again - Tooo-Daaay was my Fuuuuurst Vihhhhsihhhht to Barnes and Noble. It's painfully apparent that the entire last decade passed me by completely.

I had no IDEA that just by walking into a store I'd be overcome with the shiverin' jones that must assail most women when they first visit the Steinmart (haven't been there, couldn't tell you, but all the ladies on the teevee tell me that they LOVE the place with a vibrantly-colored meth-like eybrow-dancing love, love LOVE) or Overstock.com (because, well, if it's "all about the O" then you've got trouble, right there in your home city, with a capital O that rhymes with "O" which stands for something that you're obviously not getting at home which is why you need to shop online for shit that you could get at the Steinmart and not have to wear allwhite for, like a virginal over-age retail whore............right here in River City. Pooool!). And yes, y'all, read it again, it's a complete sentence. So there.

Where was I?

Ah yes, the Barnes and Noble. B&N, the great and mighty, with its coffee smell and lure of pastries and rows of books done up in tart-ish fashion with their "20% off" stickers garnishing their already-opulent bookish goodness. The pull of the siren song of "just right for the stocking stuffer" table that sports a veritable panoply of self-help titles that make one think that perhaps if one had a tiny shelf filled with demi-help books one could find true happiness in the crazy world by intellectually slipping into one of the palm-sized tomes for 60-seconds-a-day; the call of the wilds of the "nonfiction" section set amongst a seemingly insurmountable range of science fiction and romance novels, ascertainable only to the mighty few who choose to press on to the truth of fact hidden therein; or the bright smorgasboard of children's offerings set enticingly close the the train set, at which many an idle hour has been whiled away while a no-doubt impatient but indulgent parent nervously taps out the time of the progeny's enjoyment while eyeing the "cookbooks from around the world" section with growing hunger and salivary gland activity?

Ah, bliss, ah happiness, that but for a moment all things seem possible and all things seem to have been transcribed for our vicarious enjoyment. Who could want more than what the football stadium-sized store has on offer for our pleasure?

Shoot, too many words for a hick. Stop channeling Niles Crane and get to the point, Mary Jane!

Let me just say it like this then:

Ah'm in Luuuuuuuuuv with B&N. Totally.