True Confession

I am a compulsive reader. I mean compulsive. I mean, if you put written material in front of me, I have to read it. You know how experts are always mentioning the information bombardment we're all under and how we all are "exposed" to a ridiculous number of ads in a day? Well, for most people, "exposed" means they walk by the billboard--I actually read the ad copy.

In my vocational and leisure reading, I am capable of being fairly discerning. But if I'm in a situation where I have nothing to read with me, anything is fair game. Yes, I am the person on the subway reading your newspaper or magazine over your shoulder, or from across the car. Even though I never take the free morning papers (AM and Metro) being hawked at the subway entrance, I still read the headlines as I walk by. I can't help it.

And so. This morning I was on the PATH uncharacteristically listening to my iPod rather than reading. Which means I had idle eyes. Which naturally wandered over to the magazine the woman sitting next to me was flipping through.

Of course I realize that when you are reading over someone's shoulder, you really don't have any rights regarding the page-turning rate. And that's fine. I'm happy to read half a page. I'll still get the gist.

But.

This woman wasn't reading. She was flipping. Now you'd think, at the rate she was flipping, it was some ad- and photo-heavy mag, like Cosmo or Vanity Fair. But it wasn't. It was Fortune magazine. "Oooh, look, an article about Melinda Gates" (I'm thinking)--FLIP. "Farming in Brazil!" (I told you, I'm not discerning in these circumstances) FLIP. "The New Business of Giving!" FLIP. She flipped all the way through the magazine.

And then. This is the part that really killed me: she flipped through it again...BACKWARDS. She paused only rarely, usually to read an ad. And then started again from the beginning. I was repeatedly tantalized by headlines and snippets of text that had caught my attention, but powerless to do anything about it. I was actually close to asking her if I could have the damn magazine since she obviously wasn't going to read it. It made me crazy. It made me realize that I'm crazy. And it made me realize I need to go out and buy the current issue (God, I hope it's the current issue) of Fortune magazine.