I hadn’t ever read all of Jane Austen’s “Pride & Prejudice,” so on one Friday night not long ago, I decided to stay home, make myself a decent dinner, and dig into the book. I read for a while but was having difficulty focusing on the book after a long work-day. I turned on the TV and flipped channels, and stumbled on the chick flick “Must Love Dogs.” I’d read bad reviews of it, and wasn’t too interested, BUT it did star John Cusack after all, so I couldn’t resist.

I figured that since I was evidently spending the evening watching bad TV, I could also succumb to my most guilt-ridden snack: a giant spoon of peanut butter, along with a handful of chocolate chips in a cup, and I dip the spoon into the cup. (I started doing that sometime in the early 80s after seeing all those old Reeses’ commercials, “You got chocolate in my peanut butter.” My favorite was the one where Juliet accidentally drops a bar of chocolate from a balcony into a jar of peanut butter that Romeo is holding.)

So there I am, eating chocolate chips embedded in peanut butter, “Pride & Prejudice” on my lap…and about 2/3 into the movie, Diane Lane’s character–after bemoaning her bad dating experiences–says “I don’t want to end up a middle-aged woman sitting home alone, eating chocolate and reading a Jane Austen novel.” I froze with the spoon mid-air, looked down at my book, and just started to laugh, “Oh my god, I’m that woman.”

I am a cliche. No, I don’t have a cat.