THE COOL KID’S GUIDE TO READING: Once more around

Today’s action-packed dazzler actually begins with a numeral, but I’m having to write this paragraph first because The Telegraph overlords long ago decreed that all columns must begin with a big bold letter. So there it is, up at the left, Your Worshipnesses. May I now begin the column proper, O Great Zardoz of the Plains? Thank you. You’re all kinds of holy and just.

1. Told a lie in my column.

2. Read a series of novels that I had already read.

Those are three things that I’d never done until recently.

I rarely re-read books, because there are so many books to read. In the 40 years that I’ve been a prodigious reader, I bet I’ve re-read fewer than a dozen books.

A dozen is a handy number, isn’t it? It makes you seem analytical. Like you’re not just rounding up to a round number. It impresses the riff-raff -- who don’t know no better. And just when you think you’re out of eggs -- boom! -- two more sitting there.

So, reading what I’ve read already is not my thing. But as the old noogie goes: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

I say that all the time. Those exact words. In that exact order. Every time.

If I had to name my favorite author, I’d name him Jelly Belly McShaddup Khan.

But he already has a name: John Sandford. And it was his “Prey” novels that I recently re-read, all 25 of them.

I’m sure anyone reading a column about reading is tuned in enough to be aware of Sandford’s best-selling works. So I’ll skip a summary.

But what I won’t skip is the chance to chew on a wad of injustice.

Yet again, The Cool Kid has been shoehorned into a size 3 stiletto space in the electrical closet part of The Telegraph.

And just when this keloid was about to coalesce.

Keloid is a handy word, isn’t it? It sounds cool, and when the riff-raff is looking it up -- boom! -- you help yourself to their last two eggs.

Anyway, I don’t have room to finish. But ...

NEXT WEEK

In the mind-boggling finis of our two-part dawn-bringer, The Cool Kid answers three questions others would not even dare ask:

1. My, aren’t you clever?

2. Where’s the coupon for that keloid?

3. What’s it like to read 25 books you already read?

To contact writer Randy Waters, call 744-4240 or email rwaters@macon.com.

This story was originally published August 22, 2015 at 4:06 PM with the headline "THE COOL KID’S GUIDE TO READING: Once more around ."