The Barnes and Noble Peeper or I Am One Nosy S.O.B.

If you have been to a Borders or a Barnes and Noble lately, you've seen them. They stand in line like regular people. They linger at the shelves, seemingly engrossed in their perusal of the titles. They pace past the couches and amble slowly through the cafe. If you haven't seen them, then surely you have felt them. Their beady little eyes always roving, sliding over your personal topography where they don't belong, leaving a slug's trail of violation in their wake. You can almost feel it when their gaze falls upon you and you can almost see the gears in their slimy minds begin to turn, smell the noxious fumes of their thoughts. You've seen them, haven't you?

The Barnes and Noble Peepers. That despicable class of individuals who wander the carpeted aisles of the book store, spending an unhealthy amount of time checking out what other people are buying. With no regard for personal privacy they shove their metaphorical noses into the heart of your impending purchases. With a raised eyebrow, a knowing smile, or a disgusted smirk they pass judgement on your personality and the fortitude of your character based solely on your choice of reading material. They are the scum of the literary world and...I have a confession to make...a realization I just came to today while standing in line to purchase a book.

I'm one of them.

As I stood, eighth back in the slowly moving line, my eyes began to wander. The woman in front of me was turned to the side, engaged in a conversation with her husband. In her hand, I spied a paperback Dan Brown. I can only hope she didn't see the smirk on my face as I instantly dismissed her in my mind as being an easily lead reader of poor fiction, a literary sheep. My eyes slid over to the novel in her husband's hand. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. I don't think I snorted out loud at the thought of a Dan Brown fan and a John Steinbeck fan living in the same house, inhabiting the same space...but I might have. Imagining these two books sitting side by side on the same coffee table would be like seeing the Mona Lisa hanging next to a Velvet Elvis in the Louvre. That was my thought as I stood there, unabashedly forming opinions of people I had never met.

And that is when the realization hit me.

Not only am I a literary peeping tom (I am sure I am not the only one who checks out the reading material of others when I am a guest in their house...or am I?) but I am also a book snob. I don't mean to be. It makes me feel guilty, like someone who roots through a host's medicine cabinet to see what interesting infections they are living with. I realize that my reading selections in comparison with another's in no way sets me up on any higher moral ground (except POSSIBLY in the case of the Dan Brown novels) over that individual. It doesn't prove me smarter, deeper, better looking, or profound  to a greater degree than them. It is, simply stated, damn nosy and vomitously elitist.

 But I can't help it.

I stood there in line, ogling other customers reading selections with all the fervor of a fifteen year old boy hanging from a tree limb trying to see into his sister's best friend's bedroom window, passing judgement on their choices. And the worst part is, when I became aware of what I was doing...I didn't stop. I knew it was wrong, that I was being a horrible person, fully undeserving of my daughter's love with my literary voyeurism and pseudo intellectual snobbishness. 

But I didn't stop.

Does anyone else have this problem or should I just ship myself off to Siberia where my sickness will not bother another soul and impede only the ice and snow?