Finish that Five

So my nine year old started reading one of those YA Dystopian series, the kind where a pretty girl learns she has strengths she never knew she had in a post apacolyptic future.

No . . . not that one.

But, you know, similar.

Anyway, he got through the first book all right. Buoyed by the popular movie that was made about it. But he sort of stalled about a third of the way into the second book.

Of which there are three.

Now there is a good chance that he will continue reading them again as soon as we finish building a cardboard replica of the Sonoma Mission sometime in early December.

Now it might be that I have this odd dad-like hang-up, but being a reader, I can't help but read the stuff he's reading. It's kind of my way of participating in his life without actually you know, participating in his life.

But there's a problem.

I've got about ninety pages left of the final volume and well . . . I just don't care any more.

It's just not very good.

Or interesting.

And there's no foreseable "epic conclusion" (jacket's words, not mine) that could possibly leave me satisfied, unless of course all of the characters are killed by aliens in the next chapter and the last sixty pages are just pictures of kittens.

But the thing is . . . I have to finish it.

You get that far in a trilogy it's a moral imparitive that you find out how it ends. Imagine if you're at the dullest cocktail party ever and it's all anyone is talking about. You've invested the time and energy and to throw it all away in the final gasp is just incomprehensible.

But I don't want to finish it.

I'm going to.

But I don't want to.

Which made me think of all the things in the world that you just have to finish no matter what the cost.

Things like . . . 

One: You have to finish your drink.

If you leave one gulp of wine at a fancy restaurant, you just paid $12 for less than a cup of wine. You can't leave a full can of beer laying around, it's cruel. And if your father-in-law pours you a shot of grappa, bottoms up.

Exceptions are badly made lattes, and the glass of coke that your waiter kept refilling every 7.5 minutes.

Two: You have to finish the game

I don't care how much you hate baseball. I don't care how tired you are, and I don't care how late it is, you have to finish the game. Even if you have already lost, you have to finish the game.

Exceptions are Monopoly, which has no end, and Soccer, which has no earthly reason for being.

Three: You have to finish A Song of Fire and Ice.

This one's for you George R. R. Martin.

No exceptions.

Four: You have to finish your meat.

You can't have any pudding if you don't eat your meat.

Exceptions are you're a vegetarian, and not an orphan. Double exception if you're Pink Floyd.

Five: You have to finish that one thing you've always dreamed of finishing.

Could be a novel, could be a classic car, could be a painting, could be a college degree, could be that last five pounds, could be that last bite of cheese-cake.

Don't go to that great cocktail party in the sky with nothing to talk about.

Even if it's lame.

Which means I've got some reading to do.