I also had a love/hate attitude towards the book study. When I was growing up, the book study was in our home for some years and we had all sorts of odd characters in our group and loads of drama, which I loved. We had a sister who said she had a demon living in her big toe. Me and my sister had to walk her home afterwards and she would fart all the way back and blame it on the demons lol.
In the same group we had an ex-spirit medium and another sister whose mum had been a spirit medium who had been in competition with the other sister before they were witnesses and they didn't like each other.
One of the sisters had an opposed husband and during one book study he came around and put his fist through our front door and smashed the glass. Then the following week he came with her to the study and he was in his pyjamas claiming to have lost his memory and started introducing himself to everyone - completely cuckoo lol
Then I remember having to read the paragraphs. We had a spanish sister who used to tut and huff and puff and roll her eyes all the way through the study and she was sitting next to me making me laugh. I remember on several occasions having to get up and leave the room in the middle of reading the paragraph because I was laughing so much.
They were the good times.
When I lost my privileges as an MS I was the only brother in the group apart from the study conductor and they would get a sister to read (nothing wrong with that in itself but it was the shame of being unworthy). Thankfully it was during this time that they abolished the meeting. Can't say I was disappointed because at that time I had to travel right over to the other side of town during a time when I had no car so I had to rely on the bus and I used to have to literally sprint up the road after "amen" so I could get the bus or else I would have to wait another hour or so. I loved the family atmosphere though and yes we would often have cakes and coffees afterwards - like others, that's what I missed when it stopped - not the study itslef which I often found excrutiatingly boring.
...OUTLAW