I turned my bedside lamp on last night and the bulb burned out on me with a surprising pop. Argh! Reading with the overhead light won’t do cuz it’s way too bright. Unfortunately, my hubby was gone so for the first time in years, I had to change my own lightbulb–thank goodness I knew where he kept them. I unscrewed the lamp shade, pulled out the bulb, and plodded down the hall toward the supply cabinet.

As I headed for the replacement, I stared at the glass bulb in my hand and thought to myself, “I don’t know how to make one of these.” I mean, do you know how to make a lightbulb? I’m guessing, no. Which means instead of a buck or whatever they cost, the manufacturers could charge like $50 for one and we’d pay it cuz we use them all the time and don’t know how to make our own. Okay, I guess we could read by candlelight (which would be cheaper at 50 bucks a pop), but that’s not the point. Lightbulbs are complex, highly useful, readily available, and totally cheap. How cool is that?  I closed my eyes and sent a special thanks to lightbulb makers everywhere.  May they read my book one day and think how cheap it is to have an entire world all typed out for their reading pleasure.

Smiling, I pulled my new bulb out of the package, tossed the old one out, and promptly had a working lamp again–yay! I put my reading glasses on, plumped my pillow, and curled up with my book. The lighting was terrific. I could see the words on the page. I was ready to roll. Lightbulbs rock.

What about you? Any every day inventions that make you stop and think, wow?

I read. You read. We all read. If you don’t believe me, you’re reading my blog, right? Gotcha! But how do you read? Are you skimming right now? Did you jump to the end? Did you know people do that?

Call me crazy, but I thought when you read a book you start at the beginning, and when you reach the end…you’re done. Sounds simple. Apparently, this is not the case for everyone. The following is a conversation I had when my friend K–we’ll call her KiKi (real name withheld to protect the not-so-innocent):

Kiki: You know how when a book lulls, you just skip paragraphs and jump to the dialogue?
Me: Um, no! You can’t just skip parts of the book.
Kiki: (Gives me odd look) Sure you can.
Me: (Staring in horror) But you’re not reading the book. You’re skipping stuff.I mean, how can you say you’ve “read” the book when you’ve skipped parts? Aren’t you dying to know what you’ve missed?
Kiki: No. It was boring. That’s why I skipped it.

Is this normal to any of you? Do you do this? Cuz I can’t. Seriously, I’ve tried. My stomach goes in knots, my heart rate goes up, and I break out in a sweat. I must read a book in its entirety. So I went to a friend for comfort, for understanding in a reading world that was spinning out of control. I went to M–let’s call her Mimi:

Me: Oh my gosh! You have to hear this. When Kiki reaches a lull in a book, she just skips to the dialogue. She skips. Can you believe that?
Mimi: Really? Shoot, if a book starts to sag I just put it down.
Me: Down? Until later?
Mimi: No. I just start something new. Life’s too short.
Me: (Mouth drops open) Don’t you wonder how it ends?
Mimi: (Shrugs and wrinkles her nose) Not really.

I’m sorry, but how do these people sleep at night? Skipping parts of the book? Not knowing how the story ends? I’d be a walking zombie in the morning. Thank goodness I was set to have coffee that night with my friend E–let’s call her Edie:

Edie: How’s everything?
Me: (After sipping my nf, sfh latte) Kinda weird actually. I’m needing comfort at the moment.
Edie: (Puts a hand on my arm) Tell me.
Me: (Feeling a little scared) Okay, well, you know Mimi?
Edie: Sure.
Me: She can just put a book down if she’s not that into it. Let me make this clear, she starts the book–I pause a moment for effect–then she just stops reading it. I mean, I would go totally crazy not knowing how the story ends. You know?
Edie: (Nods her head) Oh, I know what you mean.
Me: You do?
Edie: Completely.
Me: (Squeezing her arm) Thank goodness. I was starting to think I was the only one. I just can’t put a book down. I have to know how it ends.
Edie: I get it, Susan. Really, I do. I even read the end first just to make sure everyone’s okay. I worry about them otherwise.
Me: You read the end when?!

As you can imagine, I gave up at this point, and now live in a world where “reading” is anything but simple. If you’re a straight-through kind of reader like yours truly, let me know so we can bond. If you have your own way of reading, I’d love to hear about it. At this point, nothing can surprise me.