chicken go down the hole

Any one who knows me knows that I’m a sucker for a good story—be it sappy, violent, crass, fiction, non-fiction, futuristic—whatever, I’m a sucker for a good story. Now at work, I can listen to audio tapes. The library has a large collection of these but pickings are getting thin for my preferred genres so I’m branching out.

I remembered that during my block teaching, the girls loved the Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul books. They read them in groups because there weren’t enough copies for each to read one during free reading time. So I thought that maybe the Chicken….for the Woman’s soul wouldn’t be so too bad.

Boy was I wrong.

what I listened to was a collection of what were to be the best stories from a collection. If those were the best, I’d hate to see the rest. There is a reason why the end-rhyme poetry remained anonymous. Who in their right mind would admit to writing that other than a fifth grader with remedial writing skills?

And the short stories? With the exception of one, they were pretty blah. Most did a lot of telling and no showing. The rest were self centered people who came around and became less self centered. How listening to a woman tell how she realized she wasn't the only one at the center of her moms world--that her dad was too--was not enlightening--especially when she learned this in her mid 30's as opossed to her preteen years.

I wouldn’t have been so let down had the cover not claimed that the book would be “a treasured companion for years to come”. It was certainly not a “shining collection”.
It usually pissess me off when I check out a tape for work only to find that it isn’t re-wound. This time, I see why someone hit stop in the middle of the damn thing and put it back in the box. I only wish I would have had the sense to do that.

Now most of you reading this are men. you don't have to worry about reading this. i just thought i'd mention it.

on a lighter note, i don't live in Florida.