Not All Fired Up...

...about the Kindle.

In the comment section of the "Rescued" post, my friend Pam brought up the Kindle. For those who don't know about it, it's basically a little computer-ish device that allows the owner to download entire books to take with them.  The big selling points (from what I've read and can understand) is that the downloaded books are cheaper, easier to transport 200 volumes in your backpack, and allows the owner to choose what format to read them in (large print, fine print, making notes by keyboard, etc.) among other things.

I am not known, first of all, for my technological aptitude. It's all I can do to run the toaster, competently, and at the news of my blogging, my friend Traci sputtered coffee and swooned in her chair. "But you don't USE the computer," she gasped. Then, in a moment of reflection, I could tell what she was thinking..."No, Traci, my computer screen doesn't have eraser marks on it, either."  What a relief!

It's not that I'm opposed to technology. I rather like electricity, and I whole-heartedly embrace dishwashers, washing machines and coffee makers that allow me to stumble out at 4:33 a.m. and push a button for sweet nectar from Heaven. AND if I ever have the great privilege to meet the person behind the invention of 4-wheel drive on the fly and heated car seats, I will fall on the ground in gratitude and kiss their blessed feet. (I'm pretty sure it was a woman from the gumbo hills of Eastern Montana who got good and mad about having to get out and put the hubs in, dressed in clothes for church, who invented the 4-wheel drive on the fly.)

Are you still with me?

Pam asked whether I would own a Kindle, all cost aside. (That's a pretty big aside.)

And my answer is....

If I go back to college, maybe.

(Traci just spit coffee all over her computer screen, again....Sorry!)

But I won't own one just to have one. 

1. Technology changes so quickly that they will soon be obsolete....like the first cell phones that weighed 25 pounds and came in their own briefcases on wheels.  And when I say "obsolete", I don't mean they'll be going away, per se. Just that they will be advanced, tweaked, shrunk, changed and pretty soon, the Kindle will be on the pile of "well, it was fun for a couple years", while the consumers get the newer version.

2. I'd never remember to charge it. And that would make me spitting, throw-down, stomping, pseudo-cussing mad, to not be able to read the new "book"  I purchased! AND, invariably, I'd short the dadgummed thing out with my internal electronic impulses and there'd be the most expensive paperweight ($800 device + $350 downloaded, fried books) you've ever seen.

3. Don't you just love the smell, feel and essense of books? Don't you just feel rich, to have them? Isn't it great to find someone's handwritten comments in the margin? How the heck would I share my books? ("Here, Fontie, you can borrow my Kindle...")  You can't have an author inscribe your Kindle, can you? These are questions I can get really sarcastic and cutting on, but I won't.  I'll let you leap to that, yourself.

4. This is a completely dumb thing, but I don't like the idea that not everyone can have them.  I couldn't send a box of Kindles to Africa or Afghanistan to help others. Well, I could, but then a bunch of folks in Africa and Afghanistan would have some expensive paperweights. Or something. 

I can see how they'd be completely life-saving, in college, to be able to have texts and reference materials in one lightweight, portable spot. 

I'm not all fired up to own one, otherwise. 

And I'm not likely to find one in a second-hand store, with mementos tucked into its buttons, unless it's left by someone like me. Someone who couldn't retrieve "Little Women" and tried to get it out manually....