Random Stuff OR Not Really Random BECAUSE I Got Caught in a Train of Thought (Train of Rant)

Warning: May diffuse on random courses of thought.  Could be irritating, irrational, and possibly amusing.

On ebooks.  I was in Target recently.  (I like Target.  They gave me a card that means I get 5% off every time I shop there, so I tend to shop there.  Plus they have the tea I like.  Did I mention I'm kind of a tea junkie?  Did I say this would be random?)  I got into a conversation with a woman who liked my t-shirt.  Here's the t-shirt because it kind of sparked everything that followed.

There.  I run around Targets wearing strange Poe-related joke t-shirts.  Well, the woman got the t-shirt and eventually the conversation turned to books because Poe = author = book reading.  And the woman said, to my horror, "I only read real books."  (I hadn't said anything about being a writer at that time.  She just let me have it out of the blue.)  Let me say that she did emphasize the word real and she said the whole sentence in a sarcastic way just to let me know what her innermost feelings of abhorrence are about not-real books.  Because we all know that ebooks are not REAL books.  (And somehow I managed not to kick her in the shin and throw her purse two aisles over.  Hey, I would have been kicked out of Target and it would have made me sad.  Plus jail time, yuck.  The handcuffing would have been a real hoot, however.)

Real book =

This is ironic since War and Peace is available on Kindle for $.99.  I could probably find it for free if I wanted.  Has anyone ever really read War and Peace?  I mean, I think I started it about twenty times and couldn't wade through it.  It's supposed to be a classic.  (Truly literary people are hissing at me now.  I can hear it.)  (Didn't I say something about randomness?  I can't help myself.)

But alas since I can't appreciate it I must not be a real reader either.  Ebook writer = non-real reader = spawn of the hell beast.  (I might be over telling it, but that's my prerogative.)

No, I write electronic books.  (Mostly.)  See:

Maybe I should have used a Nook or a Kindle, but hey I have a Xoom, so I have all the apps.  However, when I said something to the woman I think she was envisioning this...

I did the flames on my autosketch pad and it looked funny, not like flames so I added the pitchfork for effect.  Wait, I'm not done.  Just for more effect and for the whole reality of how I felt when I discovered that I wasn't a REAL writer.

Maybe she was envisioning more of this.  I do not know for certain.  All I can do is imagine and take a lot of license, because it's my blog.

However, I remained calm in the face of the glaring Luddite.  Barely.

In fact, I gave her one of my cards and told her how she could read the books on her PC or on her smart phone.  (Irony is having a smart phone but not an ereader.)  She said she would read something but I suspect I wasted a perfectly good business card on her.

Wait.  This is how I really felt when she said ebooks weren't real.  (You have to have seen the movie to appreciate it.  Now go and Netflix The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  The one with Donald Sutherland, although the first one is good, too.)

And since I'm not done making fun of the woman at Target, here's this...

See something always interesting happens to me when I go shopping.