I'm ashamed to admit it, but it is true

This morning like most mornings recently, I took the bus to work. I've been trying to get some extra reading done and the trip to the office in the bus takes ten minutes longer than the subway. It also gives me some fresh air and probably the day's only daylight on these short, gray winter days.

On this bus trip I found myself getting more and more involved in the book. When it came time to change buses, I barely looked left or right as I haltingly walked to the second bus with my nose still embedded in the book.

The second bus only takes me about seven stops, so it is the shortest of my trip and I normally stay on the bottom level. My subconscious mind listens and tics off the names of the stops as they come and go.

As a particularly gripping point in the book had passed, my mind must have come to the surface for a moment as a strange bus stop name was called. At first I thought that I had misheard the call, but it didn't take long to realize that what the "BUS VOICE WOMAN" had called out was two stops BEYOND my stop. DUH.

What was this literary masterpiece which had held my interest so deeply? What on earth could I have been reading which could hold my subconscious hostage in such a way? Was it Dumas, Shakespeare, Dickens? Could it have been Verne, Wells, or Twain? No, Meyer. Meyer you ask? Stephanie Meyer the author of the Twilight series. Yeah, the teenage vampire thing that has young ladies all over the world enthralled, eventually being made into a movie. Yup, I was so deeply engrossed in the third book of the Twilight series that I missed my bus stop. I'm betting that I don't sleep through the movie.

All of this for a book written by a Mormon who seems to be giving a message to young women that holding off for sex* is alright but lying to your father and your friends while doing things like riding a motorcycle illegally and letting your boyfriend sleep over every night without parental consent is really cool. Besides that it teaches these same girls that having a creepy boyfriend who your father doesn't like that manages to stalk you every waking moment is not only cool, but totally dreamy.

In my defense this morning's pages were about the history of a tribe of Indians and how they became the nemesis of the vampires... It was well told and rather interesting.

* My theory is that the lesson to be learned in this is that the mortal girl wants to "go all the way" (thinly veiled sexual thing) with the vampire, (she wants him to make her a vampire too) but he is practicing abstinence, never letting her even get to the heavy petting stage lest he not be able to control himself and really bite her. Yeah, yeah... we know Edward.