What About The Kindle?

“So, how do you like that thing?” she queried.

A woman was asking about my Kindle.  She saw me reading it while I was sitting at my famous “office away from the office”.  She was interested in my impressions about the device.

I told her, “It’s very handy in several ways, but I still like books better.”

She smiled happily.

A Kindle is a technological device called a “reader”.  It’s about six inches wide and eight inches long, it’s very thin and light.  It can store over a thousand books (and we all know, it takes a good 9 or 10 months to read a thousand books) which can be downloaded wirelessly from Amazon.com.  I’ve owned a Kindle for a couple of months now and I’ve noticed two things:

First, it’s a conversation starter.  I’ve had several people approach me and ask me about the Kindle while I’ve been reading in public places.  One time, I was reading while standing in a long line at a store (Christmas shopping) and the woman behind me engaged me in conversation about the Kindle.  Pretty soon the woman behind her joined in on the conversation.  The next thing you know, I was changing font sizes, and wirelessly accessing the “Kindle store”, and demonstrating other features while they “oohed” and “aahed”.  I felt very knowledgeable and sophisticated.  Somehow, in the process, however, they both managed to cut in front of me.  Now that I think about it, I wonder if they were really interested in the Kindle, at all.

The second thing I’ve noticed about the Kindle is that when I tell people that I don’t like it as much as I like regular books, they seem to be very happy.  The woman who asked me about the Kindle in my “office away from the office” seemed delighted when I told her I didn’t like it as well as books.

She smiled and shook her head with a look on her face that said, “See, I told you.”

Except she never told me anything.

Then somehow she and her husband managed to bring up the subject of obsolescence as it applies to technological equipment.  And I admitted that, “Yes, this Kindle will become obsolete at some point, just like all other electronic devices.”

Again, she smiled and gave me the “I told you so” look.  In the meantime, he held it for a few moments and declared, “It’s too light.  You can’t read something this light.”

Later, as the woman and her husband were leaving, she came to my table and said, “By the way, how much did you pay for it?”

I told her the price and she laughed and shook her head once again.  Then he patted me on the head the way a grandfather pats his young grandson, as they walked away.

I’m going to try to find a darker, quieter, more remote corner to sit in from now on.