Blame It On Nora Roberts

I am an avid reader.

Not so much an actual "reader" anymore, but more of an avid listener. My eyes tire easily, have lots of floaty thingies, blur a lot, etc. Due to my extreme age the eyeballs, just like everything else, ain't what they used to be.

Because of this I employ the use of an MP3 player to listen to audio books. I always try to get unabridged versions because I want to hear what the author wrote, not what the editors chopped up. And it's even better if the author reads the book because then you can get the real feel of the characters and what the author was thinking as he/she wrote.

And I do enjoy me a good story.

(Remind me to tell you about stalking Joshilyn Jackson. I'm so ashamed.)

On the rare Some Most nights you'll find me cooking supper listening to a good book while the rest of the family watches television. I have been known to get irate if I'm trying to listen to a book and a certain male child walks in every three minutes to ask where the nail clippers, mayonnaise and hair gel are, in that order. I'd even get upset if they were in a different order.

Go figure.

Because not only do I have to pause the book, but I have to then look at the errant child with my "What is it NOW?" look, sigh heavily, then actually say "What is it NOW?" to obtain a query to which the man-child should already know the answer, having lived these almost sixteen years in the same house.

You'd think he'd learn.

However.

I made the mistake of downloading a Nora Roberts book to my MP3 player. Not that I don't enjoy a good Nora every now and then, but this particular copy had a certain addlepated piece of software in the first part that wouldn't allow me to play it. As a matter of fact, it froze up my MP3 player completely. All I could do was turn it off and back on again, only to try to play it again with the same results.

I thought the book was damaged in the initial download, so I deleted it from my computer and MP3 player, downloaded it again, transferred the file to the MP3 player and tried to play Part 1. Same problem. So I turned it off.

I had to go somewhere, so I stuck the MP3 player's earphones in my ears, got in the car, and turned it on as I left.

But the player, it didn't play. It just turned on and looked at me.

I turned it off and on again.

No dice.

I determined it must be the Nora Roberts book again, so I calmed myself and told myself I'd just delete it when I got home and everything would be just fine. The player would work just like it did before this Unfortunate Incident. All would be well.

But that didn't stop me from turning it on and off every 7.3 seconds all the way home.

It was a 33 minute drive.

It's a wonder the poor thing didn't just die from overuse of the on/off button alone.

However, once I got it home and performed the voodoo ritual to remove Nora from its innards, all was well again in MP3land.

And we all breathed a collective sigh of relief and had hashbrowns and sausage for dinner, which I made while listening to Anita Shreve instead.

Sorry Nora. You had your chance.