“I HAVE a notepad,” mother says to me during one of our telephone calls, which mostly revolve around her speaking about my brother.
“Oh,” I say, wondering if I should be giving more of a reaction.
“Yes, your father got it for me.”
“He did? A notepad? Er ... what’s that for?”
“Oh heeeelllloooo,” she says, with a most sarcastic tone to her voice. “Don’t tell me you don’t know, eeeeeveryone knows what a notepad is for.”
“Yeah, Mam, I do too, I use one every day, I just don’t know why you need one.”
“Well, why shouldn’t I have one, there are no age limits on them you know,” she snaps.
“I didn’t mention your age!” I say at the same time, remembering that she is quite sensitive about the subject since she became ancient.
“You implied it!”, she says, before hanging up.
Speaking to my sister during one of our telephone calls later that day, which mostly revolve around us giving out about our brother, I happened to mention that mother was a psycho.
“Why did Dad get her a notepad?” I ask, presuming she will have the answer.
“He didn’t,” she says, in her usual chirpy tone.
“Mam says he did.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, he got her an iPad.”
“Ooooooh ...”
“She actually wanted a Kindle.”
“A Kindle!”, I spit. “A Kindle. I don’t believe it! A bloody Kindle. Who wants to read a book on a stupid, bloody Kindle? Everyone who owns a Kindle should be shot. I can’t believe she wanted one, they are the devils ...”
“I actually don’t care,” she says, and then hangs up.
Yes, reader, my mother wanted a Kindle. How could she do this to me, I wondered. How?
Obviously, I had not made my feelings on Kindles and their ilk clear enough.
Bastard Kindle people with their smartass computer things trying to eradicate the book. I’m having none of it, none of it, I tell you.
Fuming, I turned to the one person I always turn to when I want to give out.
Just as I launched into my rant about the evils of the Kindle and such, I remembered who I was speaking to - sure, only ‘Mr Computers are Number 1’ himself.
He loves technology, he is obsessed by it. It is the greatest obstacle in our relationship ... well, one of many greatest.
“We have had this conversation before. Why don’t you just stop giving out and actually look at what it does,” he has the cheek to reason.
“I know what it does: books on a computer screen. Nothing is sacred, nothing, I tell you.”
“It’s not just books; you can get magazines and newspapers too. Look here,” he says, pulling up the website on his laptop.
“You can have thousands of books - thousands of them - on one tiny little device. It’s phenomenal.”
“Thousands of books?”
“Thousands of them, all in one place,” he says, in a tone resembling the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, just before he lures all the children into his evil dungeon or what not.
“Ooooooh ... I want one.”
“You can’t have one.”
“Why?”
“Because you said on principle you would never, ever buy one.”
“I did not say that, and if I did, I was surely drunk.”
“You really don’t have any principles, do you?”
“Nah, not really.”