The Far Side ® Gallery 5 Book

I used to participate in these annual summer reading contests with my local public library. If you got to a certain number of pages over the course of your vacation, you won prizes that got better and better the more you read. I think at one level I ended up winning one of those canvass bags people bring with them to hippie grocery stores. And, at the highest level - which I achieved - I got to meet the mayor in a ceremony in the Tacoma Dome convention center. She gave some dumb speech on the importance of reading or something, I don't know, I wasn't paying attention because the last time I had to wear a button-down shirt and slacks was also the last time I was ever forced to go to church as a five year old.

The funny thing is, to get to that peak number of pages, I mostly just read collections like these Far Side books (Peanuts, Garfield, Calvin & Hobbes, even the Family Fucking Circus) along with one actual book with text to "prove" that I've been reading when we met with the librarian for our weekly update. That mayor had no idea, no idea at all!!!!