Neat Cover Obsession

I ain't a neat-freak, but I've got one rule I expect everyone I live with should keep: Never fold the cover of a book I just bought. Folds will only be condoned about a month after the purchase of the said book. I'm pretty strict when it comes to the implementation of this rule, and not even my mom can escape my wrath when she's found to have been the cause of even a measly fold before my "cover-smoothness" obsession expires. Regrettably, they have to live with me and my moderate neurotic eccentricities.

Just one of the many inconveniences other people have to bear with when around me.

It's been a while since I freaked out over a book cover fold, mainly thanks to a strict, self-imposed frugality and an uncompromising "career-over-leisure" mentality. Awhile ago, however, during an unplanned window shopping session with my brother, I came across a book (a comic book, to be exact) that suddenly whirled me into a space continuum bringing me 8 years back, when I was still an emotionally imbalanced preteen who would unabashedly shift from one reading material to another.

Archie is king!

And like that innocent 12-year old JB whom everyone thought was extremely fruity for openly exclaiming his peculiar interests; I would like everyone to know that Archie Comics make up an important chunk of my personality formation.

This made this book more important to me than what it’s actually worth.

Unfortunately, fate wasn’t as keen in keeping my crazy book cover rules as my family members. Just before dinner, my baby sister came up to me and innocuously showed me the book with a large diagonal fold in the cover. Of course, I wasn’t able to see her concern and innocence in bringing the matter to my attention. All I saw was the large diagonal fold that has now marred the pristine image of my beloved, newly-bought comic book. I blacked out, and I may have done something really bad, because the next thing I knew, she was sobbing in front of the dining table, inconsolable by the sumptuous dinner that my Dad has cooked for us.

If there is one thing that you have to know about my sister, it is that she is a juvenile Amazona, and that she never cries due to reprimands—NEVER. Not even when she gets scolded by my parents does she cry to vent out her feelings of discomfiture. As I sat down in my place at the dining table, I ate my heart out to compensate for this overpowering feeling of guilt. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at my sister as the sound of her sobs reach my ears.

I asked myself, “What has she done to deserve such harsh treatment from her eldest brother?” Heck, I wasn’t even sure if she was responsible for the big, ugly fold on my comic book.

I was becoming a douchebag, and my baby sister has become the first victim of my budding douchebaggery… and all because of that stupid “book cover” rule I made up.

As I reflect on the incident, it made realize that sometimes, these rules that you make up for yourself can injure an otherwise pure and benign reality. If you can’t be flexible enough, you would just be expecting people to adjust to your predilections. Hurting someone else, then, becomes very unavoidable.

That and you become douchier by the minute.

I don’t know how to make it up to my sister. Maybe buying her ice cream could suffice? But I doubt if that is of equitable restitution to the atrocity that I had her undergo.

I might as well think over the oddities that plague my personality… I might even consider changing some of my stupid rules (or be more flexible in their observance, at least)—in the meantime, I’ll try to engross myself to 400 pages of Archie Comics madness. Hey, maybe I could read the book together with my sister! That could be considered for some quality make up time. J