The moment I realized how much I love my Nook: when I passed that car on the way home, the one I always see. It's a Smart car with a "Real Men Love Jesus" sticker that, on any other car, wouldn't monopolize the rear window.
I pass him every day. I assume it's a him, just from the "Real Men" thing. I don't know for sure. I have trouble looking at people who drive Smart cars, like they're going to shrug as if to say, "Yeah, I know," and my laughter will explode with such force that we all end up as the day's pileup on the evening news.
But, the car. It's a blue Smart car. It has silver racing stripes, wheelbarrow wheels, and looks like a toy that I had when I was a kid. One of those Penny Racers. And he loves Jesus, enough to assert the fact to the point of making his Smart car even sillier.
But that's his car. His, and only his. I'd know it anywhere. And he doesn't care what I think of it.
Let me explain.
In addition to rocking my world on a daily basis, my wife has given me two of the most important gifts I've ever received. Not my kids, though that was all pretty spectacular, too. I'm talking about my iPod and, now, my Nook. It was 2003, maybe 2004, when she gave me the iPod. I had no idea what it would do to me. Now, here I am having podcasted a novel to thousands.
The Nook--I know it's going to change my life in the same way, but I don't know how. Not yet. But I've got that feeling.
Back on my birthday in December, the kids presented me with the envelope. Inside, a card. Someone's gotten me a great gift, it said, or something like that. My Nook. But it wouldn't come until January.
So, I spent a month thinking about it. I hadn't even seen one, yet. I'd read some reviews, but nothing solid. And it grew in my head into this thing that a thousand beefy deliverymen would pull out of the UPS truck in front of our house. This massive thing. It would be the Library of Alexandria. All printed word, ever, in my hands.
It arrived last week, and it wasn't ... I dunno. All dusty volumes, lined up. It surprised me. It was quirky, like the librarian at Alexandria had let her hair down, revealing secret beauty, and was about to knock off work to go drink Cosmopolitans and make fun of clunky-looking Kindles with her friends. Dave Barry wrote an introductory piece. It was the first thing I read on my Nook. I laughed out loud. I hadn't laughed at Dave Barry since I was twelve.
And, get this, it asked me to give it a name. A pet. And it wanted to know my name. And it wanted my friends' names, too, because it wanted me to lend them stuff.
What stuff?
Here's the other thing. Sure, I bought Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. Ease in, I thought. But, within a dozen chapters (which is like, what, 20 pages?) I was off browsing. I discovered that my Nook wanted me to download free Google Books.
And I did. Tons of them. Strange things. Minutes and bylaws from Freemason commanderies in the 1800's. Stories from the turn of the last century about ancient civilizations deep in the crust of the Earth. Scholarly studies of Celtic history by professors who are, themselves, now history. Something written in 1902 that I think is going to argue that the Illuminati were behind the U. S. war in the Philippines. (Can't wait to work my way through to that one.)
My Nook was now mine.
So, it wants me to lend these books--not the Library of Alexandria, but my own drunken and stumbling path through a strange corner of that collection--to my friends.
But, I think they'd laugh at me. "You're reading what?"
My Nook never laughs, though. And, soon, I won't care if anyone else does.
So, Smart car driver, I think I get it. Enjoy your silly little car.
I'll try not to laugh at you.
If you want a real review of the Nook, look here. My Nook is much faster than the one they reviewed. I think there was some kind of update. I dunno.
