The Classics

I wanted to be intellectual and sophisticated in order to impress women, so I bought a 12 volume set of the classics of western civilization. The thick, leather-bound books rested on my living room bookshelf and bore weighty names like Sophocles, Herodotus, and Aristotle. I pulled down volume one, Homer, sank into my couch, and started to read the Iliad. Halfway through the first chapter, I stopped. I hasn't understood a word. It might as well have been in the original Greek. And now I had a splitting headache. I picked up the remote control and flipped on the TV to watch a House rerun. I wouldn't be reading the classics this lifetime.
The books were still in mint condition, so the bookstore would probably let me return them. But then I had an idea. I could keep the books on my shelf and tell women that I had read them. They wouldn't know I was lying.
No. That wouldn't work. The leather spines of the books were still gleaming. There wasn't a single crease in them. They had obviously never been opened.
Another idea popped into my head. I could turn the pages without reading the words. Then the books would look as if they'd been read. After making sure my apartment door was locked, I picked up Homer, and, while continuing to watch House, I turned the pages one at a time. I kept getting paper cuts, though, since I wasn't looking at the book. At the commercial break, I dug out my winter coat from the closet. My wool mittens were in the coat pocket, and I pulled them onto my hands. Now as I turned the pages my hands sweat profusely, but I didn't get any paper cuts.
Over the next few days, sitting in front of the TV and wearing wool mittens, I turned every page of the 12 thick volumes. The spines now had creases in all the right places, but something else didn't look right. The color of the leather was wrong. So was the texture. The leather looked too fresh. When someone spent hours reading a leather-bound book, his natural hand oils soaked into the leather, marinating it and giving it a dark, broken-in look. But I had worn wool mittens. My bare hands didn't touch the book, so the leather looked raw.
A wave of frustration hit me as I thought I would have to spend several days stroking the books bare-handed in order to break them in, but then I remembered some advice my father gave me when I was a child. He bought me a new baseball mitt and told me to cover it with shaving cream and let it soak in for a few days. This would soften the leather, making it flexible and looking like I had used it for years. I did this, and it worked just as he said it would. Maybe it would work for leather-bound books as well.
I laid the books on tables and chairs around my apartment, open pages facing down, covers facing up. With my can of shaving cream, I lathered white foam onto the leather covers, spreading with my finger, like frosting a cake.
After the first couple books, the shaving cream can sputtered and stopped. Empty. It was the middle of the night and everything was closed except for the 24-hour convenience store on the corner, so I went there.
The clerk's name tag said Patel. He had a thick accent and reminded me of Apu from the Simpsons. I brought a new can of shaving cream up to the counter, paid for it, and almost burst out laughing when Patel said, “Thank you, come again.”
In my apartment, I continued to frost the leather-bound classics. When there were only a couple books left, the shaving cream again sputtered and stopped. I returned to the convenience store.
This time, when I set a fresh can of shaving cream on the counter, the clerk, Patel, squinted at me suspiciously with his thick eyebrows.
“You just bought shaving cream,” he said. “It was not more than twenty minutes ago.”
I considered telling him to mind his own business, but he was new to America and probably didn't realize it was rude to comment on a customer's purchase.
“I didn't finish shaving,” I said. “I need more.”
Patel squinted at my chin, which I realized was covered with stubble.
“Didn't finish?” Patel said. “You didn't even start.”
I considered telling him the truth, that I was trying to fake-read the classics, but that was too humiliating to admit. I racked my brain for an explanation of what I had used the shaving cream for.
“I'm shaving my dog,” I said.
Patel frowned.
“In the middle of the night?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said. “When else would I shave him?”
Patel's eyebrows narrowed and he squinted at my shirt.
“If you are shaving your dog, why is there no dog hair on your clothes?”
“It's a hairless breed. He likes it when I cover him with shaving cream and run the razor over him.”
“Why can't you pet your dog like a normal person?”
“This is America. If I want to shave my hairless dog in the middle of the night, I can, and you have a constitutional obligation to sell me that shaving cream.”
Patel sighed and rang up the shaving cream.
“America,” he muttered.
Back upstairs in my apartment, I finished lathering up the books. Then I left them alone to let the shaving cream do its work.
A couple days later, I wiped the shaving cream off with a rag. The leather looked dark and worn, as if well-marinated by hand sweat. I felt a grin spread on my face. Everything was set for me to impress women with my set of the classics.
Cathy was an attractive secretary in the marketing department. She always stank of cigarettes, but I could overlook that. If she didn't have the willpower to resist cigarettes, she'd be helpless against my leather-bound classics. Now that the books were broken-in, I was finally able to ask her out.
We went out to dinner. Afterwards, I asked her if she'd like to come up to my apartment for a drink. She said yes.
As soon as we stepped inside, Cathy's eyes spotted my set of classics. Her mouth opened wide and round, as if blowing smoke rings.
“What are those?” she gasped.
“Oh, those?” I said casually. “Those are the classics of western civilization.”
She approached the bookshelf and pulled down the volume on Euclid.
“You bought them used?” she asked.
“No. I bought them new.”
“They look used.”
“Because I used them,” I said. “By the way, that's real leather.”
“I love the smell of leather,” Cathy said.
She lifted the book to her nose and sniffed, as if Euclid was a fine wine. Then she furrowed her brow and frowned.
“It smells like shaving cream,” she said.
My heart pounded and I thought I was caught. But then I had an idea.
“Before they tan the hide for the leather, they have to shave the hair off the cow,” I said. “Otherwise, the book cover would have a beard. And they need to use shaving cream so the cow doesn't get razor burn. That's why you smell shaving cream.”
Cathy stared blankly at the book in her hand.
“A cow?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said.
Her jaw dropped and her eyes burned with horror.
“Oh my God!” she said. “You mean this is made from a poor, defenseless animal?”
Her sudden concern for animals confused me.
“I just bought you a steak dinner,” I said.
“I see how it is,” she said. “You think you'll buy me a fancy dinner and show me your fancy books, and I'll be so impressed that I'll just throw myself at you?!”
“No,” I said. “I mean steak comes from cows.”
She scoffed. “Steak from cows? How gullible do you think I am?”
She pulled a cigarette lighter from her purse.
“Please don't smoke in here,” I said. “You can use the balcony.”
She lit the book on fire. Euclid's pages were surprisingly flammable and went up in a blaze. It looked like an Olympic torch in her hand. Cathy jammed the burning book into its spot on the shelf, and the flames engulfed the other books.
“My books!”
I grabbed at them, but they were too hot to touch. I wished I owned a fire extinguisher. I never thought that a fire could happen to me, so I didn't even own a smoke detector. I stared into the fire and didn't know what to do. The burning paper hissed. The leather covers smoldered. Thick smoke cascaded from the bookshelf. Cathy sniffed the air.
“It smells like beef,” she said.
“I told you—steak comes from cows!”
Cathy turned and stormed to the door.
“You think you're so smart,” she said. “Well, let me tell you something—no one likes someone who's so full of himself and reads the classics.”
She slammed the door as she left.
I grabbed the side of the bookshelf and pushed the whole thing over. The flaming classics crashed to the carpet. I stomped on the fire, kicking up a cloud of ash. Soon, the last embers were extinguished, and all that remained of my desire to be intellectual and sophisticated was gray ash, blackened leather, and charred paper. Now I had no way to impress women.