What to do?

 A friend posted on social media that she faced a choice. She had promised to go out with friends, but that day, a book she had long had wanted to read came in the mail. So, should she "call out sick" and stay home and read, or give up reading the book she was dying to dive into, to keep the date?

By the way, this is not technically a dilemma. A dilemma is a choice between two unpleasant alternatives, such as, "there are only two books left on the shelf, and they're both by John Grisham..."

You can't win there if you decide to jump and plow through the turgid prose of Grisham. And my friend is young and cool and popular, so that means a feeling of social responsibility to friends and what-have-you.

Being unyoung and uncool and unpopular, I have no problem saying, "Hey, I was waiting for this new compendium of Tom Wolfe essays, so I think I'll stay home tonight and read. See you next time!"

Tom Wolfe on a bus, 1960s

The beauty of that is, you don't have to tell a little fib to get out of going, because inevitably, someone will call you back the day after you say you can't go out because you have pellagra, to ask how your pellagra rash is going. You blow the whole caper if you reply, "What pellagra rash? The hell you talkin' about?"

See, when you get to a certain age, a lot of the social constructs and fabricated rules just seem to flake off and go away. I had a friend who used to joke that the coolest thing is to live to be 80, because you can walk around 1/2 nekkid or stand on the corner singing "Mack The Knife" or have lasagna with eggs for breakfast, and what's everyone going to say?

"Well, he's 80, so...you know how they get..."

The reason you can't blow your friends off with total insouciance when you're 30 is that many many decades stretch out ahead of you. At 80 (ten years to go for me!) most of your decades are back over your left shoulder, so read your doggone book!