Why Boys Don’t Read

So I was in the bookstore the other day, and as I’m browsing through the Fiction & Literature section I hear a guy shout at the top of his lungs, “GET ONE OF THE CLASSICS!” and I’m like, “WTF?” So I peek around the aisle and see a mom sitting with her son, who couldn’t have been more than 14, and she’s saying, “So these both look good, right? Which one do you want?” And the son’s like, “I don’t know. Can we just go?” And the mom’s like, “Well, what do you think of this one?” and the son’s like, “It won’t be good,” and she’s like, “How do you know it won’t be good?” and he’s like, “I don’t know. I just know.” The conversation continued in this vein for a while, punctuated every once in a while by the dad (who was off somewhere else) shouting, “GET ONE OF THE CLASSICS!” I wandered by and glanced at the books the mom was holding. One I couldn’t make out the title, but the other was Catch-22. Now, I like Catch-22 quite a lot, but you’re a total effing idiot if you try to foist that on an unwilling 14-year-old boy to try to get him to read something. I debated for a minute whether I should say anything, something along the lines of, “Hi, I couldn’t help but notice that you’re a total effing idiot. Do you need some help picking out something that a typical 14-year-old boy might actually want to read?” But then I sort of imagined bringing over a copy of Tim Zahn or R. A. Salvatore or something, and having the dad go, “THAT’S NOT ONE OF THE CLASSICS!” and I decided I just didn’t have the energy for it right at that moment. I seriously don’t get what these people can possibly be thinking though. I’ve had this conversation repeatedly: “My 14-year-old son doesn’t read.” Me: “What have you done to try to get him to read?” “Oh, like I bought him a copy of Bleak House, and he read a few pages, but then he went back to playing Halo.” Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.