Waiting in the optometrist’s office with my son, I picked up a Reader’s Digest.

Drama In Real Life: Buried Alive by a Blizzard!

As a kid, I read whatever I could get my hands on. That included trashy romances, dragon adventures from the school library, my grandfather’s Time-Life series about aliens, my other grandfather’s James Herriot Yorkshire vet collection, my parent’s school leftovers, boxes of randomness that my dad brought home from auctions, and the entire rack of kids-with-rare-illnesses books at the public library.

But sitting in the optometrist’s office and holding this Reader’s Digest in my hands, I realized these were what I read most. They came home from the grocery store with the milk and eggs and were just as much a staple in our house.

There’s probably a direct connection between Drama in Real Life stories and this:

Or this:

Or this:

It seems I’m all about the drama, even decades later.