Bottled Sky

Who knew that weird underwear can be so useful? Not only can they ward off job-interview jitters, they can also serve as a fairly accurate gauge of how long a girl has put off doing her laundry. The stranger the undies, the longer the wait.

It’s inevitable, really. Once in a while, when a girl’s hectic schedule has run her ragged and all she can do as soon as she reaches home is zonk out, she must brave the depths of her dresser drawer known as The Underweird, the domain of mismatched, eccentric underwear that wouldn’t normally see the light of day.

Take me for example. Today I wore a graffiti-patterned demi-bra with silver clips in lieu of the usual strap adjusters and a purple-striped drawstring thong.

Care to venture a guess as to how long I haven’t been able to do my laundry?

I don’t care what the old adage says. I judge books by their covers. The only times I buy books whose covers don’t tickle my fancy are when they have been recommended by someone with whom I share similar tastes in books (tastes that tend toward the off-beat and the downright weird).

But more importantly, I judge books by their titles. What are titles for if not for grabbing potential readers by the collar and screaming, “READ ME!”?

In my case, the likelihood of my buying a book is directly proportional to the strangeness of its title. If book titles were people, I would be most effectively grabbed by that freak skulking at the back of the classroom or that woman dressed like Helena Bonham Carter on drugs.

See below the titles of the last five books I’ve enjoyed:

• The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
• The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters
• The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy (a well-chosen gift from the same someone I mentioned above)
• Life of Pi
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

So now I ask you, are there any strangely titled books that you could recommend to me? I’ve just got back in the swing of reading, and I want to keep my momentum.

I predict a book shopping spree in my very near future.