Illiteracy: Just blame Harriett

I recently stumbled upon a truly disturbing statistic claiming that the rate of illiteracy in the United Sates is increasing as technology advances and becomes more widespread. While I will not say that the correlation between the two is unreasonable evidence for causation (though any good statistician most certainly would), I will present more believable grounds for the illiteracy trend.

When I was a girl in the middle-school stage of life, I loved to read. Give me a summer and give me a paperback, and I would love you forever but never thank you, as I’d be too absorbed in my Janette Rallison novel to think of another actual living, breathing, real-life Muggle human being.

However, what is one to do with their hands if they find a reading position where using them to stabilize the book is unnecessary? (As with the Kindle—perhaps technology does play into the equation to some extent.) The fact is, as I read there was not enough remaining brain function to compute that my hands had become possessed and were doing their worst to transfigure me into a more female version of Trump Boy.

That evening I ventured up, pale-faced, from my basement cave to expose myself to sunlight (that dangerous menace), and those unfamiliar peer human relations. It was then, as I lifted a hand to smooth my tresses, that I realized a bald spot. Albeit small, the creature was obvious and embarrassing. I christened it Harriett. Realizing that my reading hands were to blame, I gave myself a comb-over, told my books “You’re Fired,” and left my leisurely reading habits in the past, moving on to the more sensible and popular hobbies of thrifting and crocheting. Thus my fashion sense peaked, and my literacy sense plummeted.

I doubt my experience is unique, and I trust that others have suffered with similar or identical reading predicaments of their own. I would propose that the true problem is that an apocalypse is upon us. Zombies? A mere distraction. Protect yourself against your hands and your bald spots. There is no escape and little control to be had. Prospects are grim. The severing of ligaments may become necessary. The use of infomercial hair-growth products might become essential. The preservation of literacy is worth the sacrifice. Do what you must. Prepare now.