General Archives – Lisa Scottoline

By Lisa Scottoline

Lately, everyone’s talking about adulting.

No, not adultery.

Nobody even cares about that anymore.

Nobody even knows that word anymore.

Adulting is a made-up word that means trying to be an adult and doing the daily things that adults have to do, like paying bills, putting out the recycling, and establishing a savings account.

Everyone online is talking and blogging about adulting, so much so that there’s even a backlash against it, with people claiming it’s sexist, boring, or overplayed.

That’s where I come in.

At the end.

I always get wind of something when everyone else is sick of it.

Just like I always hit the store and find out the sale was last week.

But as for adulting, I’m a fan.

I’m even a fan of the word.

Usually I don’t like trendy, made-up words, but this one makes sense, and honestly, I’ve thought for a long time that adulthood should come with a basic book of instructions, so you know the myriad things that are expected of you, from the macro level like Be Kind To People And Animals, down to the micro level like You Can Wash Your Hair With Dishwashing Liquid if You Run Out of Shampoo, and Vice Versa.

See, did you know that?

Well, it’s true.

Take it from me.

Don’t ask how I know.

To stay on point, maybe that’s what happens as we get older. We accumulate all kinds of little tips for living, which not only help you do the right thing but also make your life easier.

For example, Tell The Truth is always the right thing.

But you know what will make your life easier?

You Can Pick Your Teeth With an Envelope If You Don’t Have A Toothpick.

See?

That’s a quality life tip, right there.

Let’s call it adulting, so we feel trendy.

I read online that there was a library giving classes in adulting, and I applaud that. It’s just another thing to love about libraries, though between us, I feel like I could teach an adulting class, with tips like:

Clean The Lint Trap On The Dryer Or Something Bad Will Happen.

Change The Oil Filter On Your Car Or Something Bad Will Happen.

Don’t be Weird About Going To The Doctor Or Something Bad Will Happen.

We can all agree on those adulting tips. And then there are ones that only I know:

Drink Half & Half When You Run Out of Milk Because It Tastes Like Milk, Only Better.

Don’t Buy Foundation Because It Wears Off After Two Hours And If It Doesn’t, It Was Too Thick In The First Place.

Don’t Cut Your Hair When You Think You Need To Because That’s When It’s Starting To Look Good.

Buy Cheap Bras Because They’re Always More Comfy Than Expensive Ones.

And, Buy Back-ups Of Everything, Especially Toilet Paper.

Agree or disagree?

But even though I have learned a few things, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m super successful as an adult.

In fact, I screwed up as an adult just today.

What happened was that yesterday afternoon, I was standing outside with the dogs and I felt a gnat around my face. I tried to wave it away, but by mistake, I batted it into my eye.

So right there, not quality adulting.

In fact, that’s an epic fail, as the kids would say.

Of course, they said epic fail three years ago.

I just got now got wind of it.

Which would probably be the definition of an epic fail.

But anyway, the gnat was in my eye, so I washed my eye and thought I’d gotten it out. It bothered me the rest of the day, but I figured it was irritated and forgot about it. I went to sleep, woke up the next morning, and looked in the mirror.

And what did I see?

Well, nothing, out of one eye.

It was all black.

Because there was a dead gnat on my cornea.

Yes, I slept all night with a bug in my eye.

It must have drowned in my eye juice.

But I slept great.

Maybe it was a sleeping bug?

Anyway, I’m not proud of this.

No matter how you slice it, it’s not quality adulting.

I’m pretty sure that if I taught a course in adulting, the first lesson would have to be:

Don’t Sleep With Bugs In Your Eyes.

So I’m not always perfect.

But above all, It’s Okay Not To Be Perfect.

By Lisa Scottoline

Do you know who Dillon Helbig is?

Well, I’ll tell you.

Because I’m betting that one day his will be a household name.

Dillon is a second-grader in Idaho who loves to make up stories. One day he wrote one down and titled it The Adventures of Dylan Helbig’s Crismis. It was eighty-one pages, and he made a cover and illustrated it himself. Underneath the title he wrote, By Dillon His Self.

I love this kid.

But it gets better.

So then, on his next trip to the library with his grandmother, unbeknownst to anyone, Dillon slipped his book onto the shelf in the children’s section. What happened next is that the librarians discovered the book, read it, decided it meets their selection criteria, and added it to the library’s collection. Everybody who reads it loves it, and now there’s a long wait list to check it out. Not only that, the library awarded Dillon its first-ever Whoodini Award for Best Young Novelist.

I love everything about this story. I love that Dillon loves books, loves the library, and doesn’t always follow the rules. I love librarians for myriad reasons, and this story illustrates all of them, but mainly because they love books, love the library, and don’t always follow the rules.

Dylan is reportedly working on a sequel to his book, which will involve his dog Rusty.

This kid is a genius.

His marketing instincts are unerring.

Dogs always work in books.

If I didn’t have a dog named Rusty, I would say I did.

Rusty!

Dillon’s next book idea is reportedly about a closet that eats clothes.

Honestly, that’s the best book idea ever.

This kid is the master.

I mean, he wrote a book and put it on the library shelf.

He wanted his book in the library.

Who doesn’t?

I lived in the library when I was younger, and I used to dream of having my books in the library.

I should add that this story about Dillon appeared in The Washington Post, to which I digitally subscribe, and the piece was written by Kellie B. Gormly. If you want to know more details, you should read it there because it will make you feel really good.

The story is all the more remarkable when you realize it happened in the same week that books are being taken off library shelves.

Because you may have read that a school district in Tennessee banned the graphic novel Maus, effectively taking it off its school library shelves, even though the book won a Pulitzer. Maus is about the Holocaust and is written by Art Spiegelman, the son of a Holocaust survivor, and is based on his father’s stories. In the novel, the victims are mice and the Nazis are cats.

The Tennessee school board gave some reason for banning the book, but I’m not going to repeat them because there’s no good reason to take Maus off the shelf in any library.

Especially at a time when people are waving Nazi flags from overpasses in Orlando.

The United States Holocaust Museum said that Maus played “a vital role” in Holocaust education. And by the way, the Tennessee school district took this action the same week as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

I’m guessing they forgot.

It’s ironic that a child’s instinct is to put a book on the shelf, but at the same time adults who lack his wisdom take books off.

It hit home for me because my novel Eternal comes out in paperback this week, and it’s about many things, among them the Holocaust in Italy. I wrote the book for many reasons, among them that I want people to know what happened during Fascism and Nazism, in the very heart of Rome. I’m proud I wrote the book, proud it’s been so well-received, and proud it’s on a library shelf, where it belongs.

And it better stay there, or I’m going to get very South Philly on somebody’s tushie.

What we need in this country is more books, not fewer.

What we need in this country is more education, not less.

What we need in this country is great big thinkers like a little kid.

Classic Column: Adults Only

In Praise of Dillon Helbig

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