Are you feeling ok???

 

My husband and I are avid readers.  A visit to the book store was always good for lots of points on the credit card (that’s the good news; the bad news is obvious).  

Lately, we are spending far less time in the bookstore, but that’s not to say we are cutting back.  We are still reading just as much as ever.  But we found a way to reduce the dollars (good news) and the points (bad news) on the credit card bill and reduce the piles of books covering nearly every surface in the house.  We gave each other refurbished Kindles for Christmas.

If you have a Kindle, you know how this works.  You buy a “book” from Amazon, and download to your Kindle.  When you finish reading it, you put it back into your “archives” (a sort of virtual bookshelf with your name on it).  It can then be downloaded onto any other Kindle linked to that bookshelf/account.

OK, so last night, I wanted to read a book that was still on my husband’s Kindle.  I asked him to put it back on the shelf so I could get it.  He sent it back into the archives, and within 30 seconds, I had it on my Kindle, this gizmo in my hand that’s connected to nothing.  Unbelievable.

Now, I’m a very visual person.  So I picture this book, flying back up into the great cloud called Amazon (whoosh!), and then flying back down into my Kindle seconds later (thunk!). 

And that makes me think of all the other stuff that has to be flying around out there in the ethersphere (swish!  whoosh!  zoom!  screech!  bam!).   I have this overwhelming desire to shout “Duck!  Incoming!”

I’m sure I’m missing a bunch, but these come to mind.  We have constant TV and radio signals, some flying up to satellites and back.  There are short wave radio signals and CB radio signals.  We have an ever-increasing number of cells phone conversations going on at any one time.  Add to that the texts (I read recently that the average teenager sends 2900 texts per month!) and tweets and pics and downloads that cell phones are shooting out like sparks.  Computers and other devices add WiFi to the mix, and whatever stuff it is that makes it possible to have a real-time conversation (in voice or text, with or without video) with someone half a globe away.  There are signals from GPS devices and services like Onstar and LoJack.  Geez, there are even tracking signals emanating from those ankle cuff devices they slap onto people under house arrest.  And one shudders to consider what governments (ours and others) are firing out into the air. 

With all this invisible stuff crashing about in the air around us, I don’t know why we aren’t all sick.