Why I had to kill my Kindle

"Oh no, what are you doing," Sydney asked, horrified when she spotted me weeping copiously early last Saturday morning. Brad, seated across the room, answered for me. "She's reading a Nicholas Sparks book."  "Mom! No!" Sydney exclaimed, attempting to wrestle the novel out of my hands. "Have you ever read a Nicholas Sparks," her father asked as he attempted to weather out this great gale of tears. "No," Sydney replied, eyeing me with great concern as I started to hiccup uncontrollably. "Mom and I used to read John Green until she declared him off-limits. John Green is the Nicholas Sparks of his generation, she'd attested and I've stayed away from them ever since." "He's a hack," I spluttered, tossing another tissue to the floor, "I can't remember the name of a single character from his books...the're devoid of symbolism...saturated with obvious metaphors..." I took a shaking breath. "Then why do your READ them," my husband asked in frustration. "He's holding me hostage emotionally," I wept.

"If you'd let us get you a new Kindle, you wouldn't have to resort to the Take One/Leave One bookshelf in the school's faculty room," Sydney scolded for the fiftieth time. I sighed. It was time to confess. "I don't want a new Kindle," I told her. "But you love your Kindle," she argued, "you read non-stop up until it broke." "I broke it, Sydney," I admitted, "I ran it over with the Titan" (Twice...kudos to Kindle...the first time crunched the screen but the device still powered on). "Mom! No!" she gasped, hands covering her mouth in shock and horror. "I had to Syd...I was addicted to the romance stories (also known as soft-core XXX for semi-literary women). Wait...are you shocked? C'mon now. Do you think all those women on the beach are reading Kafka?

I recalled a month ago when I tried to wean myself off with a classic...food for the soul but I... I hungered for junk-food. I tossed Wuthering Heights aside for the demon call of the Kindle. The free books. The free trashy books. Heathcliff could not compare. Who wants to endlessly wander the moors in tortured angst when you can just cut to the chase? Who wants plot? Who wants characters with depth and substance? Who wants symbolism and figurative language? Apparently...not me.

I tried just draining the battery. I even turned off the wi-fi capabilities but it turned out that I'm just too clever for me. There was only one thing left to do (besides exercise self-control which ANY reader of this blog will attest...I HAVE NONE)...I had to kill my Kindle. I'm so sad. No more power-reading through a book in two hours and casting it aside like a cheap one-use razor. Now I have to think. Reflect. Wonder. Infer. Grow. My mind of mush is once again beginning to take shape. "You're insane," Sydney snapped, stomping from the room (probably to hide her own Kindle). I glanced over at my husband who shrugged, "We could have sold it," he said pragmatically. Maybe my metaphor wasn't obvious enough.