Alert the Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Consumer Protection. Call the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Tip-off the DEA. Shut the windows and lock the door.
A Mother’s Day was spoiled by the elves in Lucifer’s Little Toy Shoppe™. Be forewarned – this could happen to you:
“For Mother’s Day this year, I told my family, it better be good. Since last Mother’s Day, my mothering skills have been put to the highest test.”
So innocently begins the saga of Elizabeth, a writer and rare book dealer in a small town in Georgia. It is, however, a cautionary tale so terrifying in its denouement.
“What I got shocked me,” she continued. “At first, I just stared at it.
“A Kindle.
“Lovely red leather case. Slick, and thin, and well, fascinating. And, I soon learned, dangerous. Very, very dangerous.”
Just how very dangerous?
“Verrrryyy dangerous. For my pocketbook if nothing else. I have already purchased four books and read two of them. Downloaded another two that were free.
“By yesterday, I learned that to save myself from financial ruin, I had to turn off the wireless function. I had to make myself a Kindle budget. I had to stop downloading sample chapters, because that way leads to debtor’s prison. I read a book’s worth of first chapters on Monday. And I wanted to buy at least half of them.
“And Amazon, not surprisingly, makes it very, very easy to buy the book. Too easy, actually. The buy button is large and prominent on each book page. I already hit it by accident twice, and had to request a refund…
“The Kindle is a dangerous toy…my husband may regret this lovely choice when the credit card bill comes in.”
A mother on the brink. An insidious addiction enabled and fostered by free samples. Children wondering why Mommy is not as attentive as she once was. A marriage threatened. The specter of debtor’s prison hanging over her like a sword of Damocles. Substitute Dr. Locock’s Female Wafers (“They fortify the constitution at all periods of life, and in all Nervous Affections “), the Victorian nostrum loaded with morphine, for Der Kindle and it’s a positively Dickensian scenario.
As for toys, am I crazy or is the Kindle a souped-up, high-tech Etch-A-Sketch?