I was on a long flight from Los Angeles to Richmond, Virginia, and I thought I was going to go insane.
It wasn’t because of the long flight itself, nor was it because of the hassles of air travel. No, I was going out of my mind because two passengers behind me were prattling on about some reality TV show and I couldn’t escape.
It’s not like they were discussing an interesting show or book, perhaps one of the latest best-sellers. They could have talked about any number of interesting books, say, books about zombies, vampires, or even werewolves. The choices are endless! I might not have minded so much then, because I might have learned about a new book to read or movie to watch. But no, they were droning on and on about some reality show about a dancing competition.
My mind struggled to comprehend their fascination. I would have thought discussing the results of a dancing competition would take just a few minutes:
PERSON A: So, who won the dancing competition on the show last night?
PERSON B: John Travolta. He was born to hand jive.
PERSON A: Oh, neat.
But no. Those two behind me went on for hours talking about what costumes the contestants wore, whether Contestant 1 was sleeping with Contestant 2’s dance partner, and on and on and on. And oh, remember all the riveting excitement that happened last season? Here, let’s recap in detail. And they did.
Multiple seasons of a dancing show?!
Did I mention they kept up this topic for hours?
It seemed my life was flashing before my eyes, and would quickly come to an end:
- I hadn’t heard as much angst and drama since high school.
- I couldn’t read a book on my Kindle because their voices were now like an icepick to the brain.
- I thought for sure I was going to pull the emergency-exit chute and escape to the safety of oblivion, like that Jet Blue flight attendant.
When I finally got home from that flight, I did some research and decided to sign up for Audible, a company that publishes audio books, and I’ve been in book-reading heaven since then.
Now, when I’m driving, walking the dog, grocery shopping, or sitting trapped on a plane next to people chatting about a reality TV show, I can make use of this idle time by “reading” about something interesting by listening to an audio book.
I’ll post more later about how the program works and a neat way I’ve found to optimize your reading time even more, but for now, I just wanted to say that Audible has helped me read a lot more than I used to, and it has even prevented one person (me) from going insane on plane flights. Audible is that good.
If you are interested in trying Audible yourself, here’s a special offer I found: Download an audiobook for $7.49 and save 50% for your first 3 months.