I know we’re all busy these days.

By the way, have you ever wondered what “these days” are? Were there ever any other “days” when people just sat around with nothing to do? Are we all busy “these days”? Sure, but no one in pioneer days had leisure time. Peasants in Czarist Russia didn’t twiddle their thumbs a lot. And for most of human history, every single human, from the second he woke up to the second he went to sleep in the cave, did nothing — NOTHING — but look for food. Every second of every day, look for food, look for food, look for food. Where’s Bob? Where do you think? Looking for food.

Anyway… I know we’re all busy these days. And I know there’s not a lot of time people need to fill. I know we have entertainment options and work loads and family loads. That said, if you have a spare few minutes between putting the kids in bed and watching something on TV…

Please read P. G. Wodehouse. You will not only be delighted and charmed from the first sentence — Check that: You’ll be delighted and charmed from the first few groups of words.

It’s been years for me, and I decided yesterday to pull down something I haven’t read for a while, and my eye immediately went to three: “The Inimitable Jeeves”, “The Code of the Woosters”, and “Leave it to Psmith”. I’ve read them all, and they’re all wonderful — and, as I said, it’s been years — but I immediately grabbed “The Inimitable Jeeves” and started right in standing there.

Oh, I don’t know if you’d like it, folks, come to think of it. It’s so mannered and stylized, I suppose, and just out of another world completely, but, Lord, that man could write, and it’s so clever and witty and, in the weirdest way, REAL, and there isn’t one moment in them where I’m not reading with a big, wide smile; and isn’t that worth something? I know it’s valuable that certain plays and movies and shows reflect the horrors of life, but do yourselves a favor and balance the spicy food and hot sauce with something sweet for dessert.

Take a few minutes with, I think, one of the greatest wordsmiths of all English writing.

I’ve been reading a lot of airport books lately, and those are often terrific, and I don’t mean “airport books” as a pejorative.

BY THE WAY, I just looked up “pejorative” to make sure I was using it correctly (in the gigantic Webster’s I mentioned the other day that lives on the other side of the desk, a walk-around away) and I did use it right (this time), but dictionaries being fun, as I mentioned, I let my eye fall on one more entry, and it was this: peek’a-boo, n. a child’s game in which someone hides his face, as behinds his hands, and then suddenly reveals it, calling “peekaboo!”

Now, for a second I thought, “Who in God’s name doesn’t know what peekaboo is, or needs to check, or wants a precise definition?” I mean, Martians could land and know what peekaboo is, right? Is there a single person on Earth, no matter how cruel, who hasn’t played peekaboo? Then I thought, “Actually, yeah. Terrorists probably don’t.” And please don’t tell me it’s because they’re so hurt inside, or because no one played it with them.

Anyway, I will read anything in the airport bookstores that has a shield and a cross, or a tank, or a mystery, and I can usually blast through the good ones in a couple of flights; and I’ve really enjoyed a lot of them.

But I can’t wait for the Wodehouse tonight. I’m going to finish this and save it, and read some Superman or Green Lantern to the kids, and then forsake the old movie channel for Jeeves.

Well, I might watch the end of Monday Night Football first. I think that’s a pretty good parlay: football, Superman and Jeeves. As Yakov Smirnov might say, “What a country.”

REMEMBER: IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND HAD THE TIME AND THE INCLINATION TO READ SOMETHING WONDERFUL — OR PLAY PEEKABOO — FOLKS, THE GAME’S OVER AND YOU’VE WON.