Cherophobia

The following happened to me tonight:

"I don't like books."

"What?"

"I don't like books."

"I... I don't... what?"

"I just don't like them."

"How can you not like books?"

"I just don't."

I looked around the bar to make sure this wasn't some sort of joke being played on me.

It wasn't.

"I can understand you not liking a certain kind of book, but surely you can't not like ALL books?"

"Well, I don't. I just don't like books."

He took a sip of his drink and I looked at his wife for some moral support.

I didn't get any.

"We don't have books in the house do we?" She said it with a smile.

I felt like crying.

"No books at all?" I looked at her and then him in the vain hope they would mention an old copy of something that had once caught their imagination.

"We've got manuals and stuff, but no books, not with stories anyway."

"But... I..."

"I can read!" He threw that into the conversation, just to make things worse. "I just don't like to."

"What was the last book you read?"

He looked at her, and she looked at the ceiling and chewed her lip.

"Something at school?"

He nodded and repeated.

"Something at school."

"Twenty years ago?" I was starting to lose the will to live.

"And the rest, it must be thirty?"

"Thirty," she confirmed, with a roll of the eyes and a shrug of the shoulder.

I took a copy of my book out of my bag, and pointed it with my other hand.

"So if I gave you this what would you do with it?"

"I don't know really." For the first time he looked unsure.

"You could read it?" I threw the suggestion out as gently as I could.

They looked at each and then he took the book and took a look at the picture on the cover.

I waited.

He turned the book over and looked at the back for a couple of seconds.

Then gave it me back.

"No thanks, no offence, but I don't like books."