Nobody likes an interrupter. While the mother of two is simply trying to have a conversation with her husband and her youngest is pulling at her shirt sleeve asking her for a juicebox, she feels as if she might explode on her sweet little child. While the teenager is sprawled out on her bed on the phone and her brother is yelling at her from the other room to bring him more toilet paper, she thinks she’s about to whop him upside the head. While the two little boys are having a thought provoking discussion about their favorite video game at the dinner table and their mother is dabbing at their mouths with a napkin and telling them they need to mind their manners and be neater, they both think they’re about to burp just to annoy her.
Everybody hates an interrupter, no matter who it is, what they’re talking about, or whether or not the interrupter is trying to interrupt. But when the interrupter is interrupting a good book… well, that’s a whole other story. You see, you must never interrupt a reader. It’s forbidden. All readers know the agony, annoyance, and utter explosion that bubbles up inside when the interrupter interrupts a good book. Interrupt me when I’m talking, interrupt me when I’m listening to my iPod, interrupt me when I’m doing homework. But never, ever, interrupt me when I’m in a book.
There’s no reason to do it. Imagine you’re sitting on your couch, minding your own business, and your great-aunt Ida interrupts to tell you she has a pair of old shoes of hers you might like. Dear Aunt Ida, I really, truly, don’t want your shoes, you think to yourself, but she babbles on, and you feel like smoke may spout from your ears. And right when the heroine in your book was about to defeat the antagonist of your story! ARGH! Or… picture yourself in a Starbucks and you’re sitting in an armchair, laptop on your lap, reading an online book and a man sits down next to you with a cup of steaming Caramel Frappe (Mm-mm… you make a mental note to try that), and he goes, “So… what are you doing?” You answer him you are reading, but he only sips his beverage and ask what it’s about. “Oh… a girl who becomes invisible,” you respond, and then tell him she’s right about to – oh, but you missed it! He only sniffs disdainfully and tells you about his job at the bank.
Annoying, right? There’s nothing like being interrupted in a middle of a book. Really, the best way to befriend a reader is to keep your mouth shut while they’re reading. And, in their own way, they’ll see you respect them and their escape from their reality. (Isn’t that what books are for, after all? The wonderful joys and fantasies of books are usually a whole lot better than the either boring or sometimes harsh realities of real life.) Besides, if this reader is even semi-aware of their surroundings, they’ll notice you and hopefully be polite enought to shut the book and make an effort to talk to you. And… if not, they’re probably just enjoying a really good book.
