Did I Mention I Love My Kindle?

I’m a total book snob now. Like, I was in a closeout sale at a bookstore a while back and picked out several things that are on my TBR list. But then I put them back. Because I can get them on my Kindle. Really, if I didn’t already have a craptillion books on my actual TBR pile, I would probably never read an old-fashioned paper book again. (Sorry Katie. But I still do love libraries, for what it’s worth.)

As a child of the 60’s (Yes, I know you are having trouble believing that. Go ahead and say so. You won’t embarrass me.), we were promised so many things by “The Future.” Robots. Flying cars. Moon colonies. Underwater cities. Computer brain implants.

You young people, who have always had cell phones and computers and MP3 players, you don’t understand the disappointment this so-called future is to us. How can you know what it was like to only be able to change TV channels by getting up and walking to the set? How can you know what it was like to have to listen to a bunch of songs you didn’t want to hear because you can’t back up the 8-track to get to the one song you did want to hear again? How can you know what it was like to have to sign up a week in advance to use one of the college’s four computers for your DOS programming homework because nobody had their own computer? No, not even the rich kids.

(DOS, in case you are not up on your ancient history, was a way of making you waste hours of your time, writing IF/THEN statements. And you would end up with a printed page that made a picture of a smiley face out of O’s or had some lame-ass message like "Congratulations, you have correctly completed the assignment." And by God, we would carry take those dot matrix printouts and enclose them in plastic report covers and carry them to our professor the next day all solemn and reverent, as if we had found the robes of The Master.)

How could you text-messaging, Facebooking, iPhoning youngsters know that exquisite pain?

Sigh. So I might not have the flying car or the computer brain implant, but I do have my Kindle. My portable electronic library. Just like Captains Kirk, Picard, Janeway, and Sisko.

And someday, I will have a robot companion, too.