ipads r us

Paul was out of town for a week and I decided the kids and I needed an End of Summer Week O’ Fun. We did all the favorite things, went to Toys R Us, the sushi restaurant, the park, flew paper airplanes with friends, went swimming daily, visited family, and one day we went to see Despicable Me, which we enjoyed greatly.

“Lightbulb.”

Despicable Me wasn’t playing at our usual, local theater, so we had to drive a bit to a mega-mall super mondo cineplex with umpteen million theaters and people stationed everywhere to direct the milling throngs to the appropriate screen.  It was like an airport.  But that was all new and fun and we ate popcorn and had a ball. Have you noticed a bunch of movies lately with lovable villain-protagonists?  Phineas and Ferb’s Heinz Doofenshmirtz, for example.  He’s one of our favorites.

Dominating the Tri-State Area since 2009

Afterward, we found ourselves wandering the mega-mall, a bit like we had found ourselves suddenly on an alien planet.  First thing, of course, was buying chocolate, three gorgeous truffles, raspberry, cherry, and cappuccino—they came with handwipes, how cool is that?

They looked just like this.  I nearly wet myself.

Next came the giant Barnes and Nobel, so big it had escalators and a toy section.  The kids looked at everything, and I mean everything, and Luc declared that when he was grown up, this would be his house and all these books would be his, and he would never have to go home because he would already be there.

Chez Luc

Finally, we found ourselves at the Apple store.  Oh la la.  There must have been a hundred people in there.  Most of the place was taken up with demo model iphones, ipods, imacs, ibooks, and [cue holy music] ipads.  (What does the ‘i’ stand for?  Information?  Idiot?  Icky?  Inedible?  Or is it the first person pronoun maybe?  As in, i’s all about me, I mean ‘I‘?)

Here’s the thing: the kids both picked up ipads and instantly were driving them around like pros.  Zip zip their fingers flew across the screen and there was Sophie, looking at a lovely, color illustrated Winnie the Poo.  Luc was instantly playing Zombies Vs. Plants.  ZERO learning curve, just, boom, they were in.  I’m telling you, this thing is PERFECT for kids.  It’s the perfect kid size, shape, interface, and it fits right in their small hands or lap with this durable feeling touch screen instead of, say, a flimsy feeling hinge joint you get on a laptop. I turn around and now Sophie is doing a drawing of cats, and I finally get my hands on another demo-model and oh my god, I want one.

“You know you want it.”

I know I have talked of my love of my ipod touch, so I guess it makes sense that an ipod touch on steroids would be dazzlingly appealing, but wow.   I stood there rationalizing at lightspeed, smoke coming out of my ears with the effort. We could drop our tv service down to zip and the kids could watch their shows on Hulu or Netflix on the ipad, so really, it would pay for itself.  This is a homeschooling tool.  So really, it’s for the children.  And it would be wonderful for reading.  I could write with it, bank with it, entertain the kids with it.   Together we could rule the world.

We, too, could be lovable villains!

I WANT ONE!

No 3G, just the maximum memory wi-fi version.  That’s all.  I’m a simple person with simple needs.

I’m telling myself I’m waiting for the 2nd gen to come out because you know they’re going to put a camera on it or something that will just make the 1st gen seem so antiquated.  But really, I have no money for this thing, none.  Dentist bills, and property taxes, how I curse you!

There isn’t even a date set for 2nd gen so I can probably distract myself for the foreseeable future.  I just have to stay away from the apple store and those blasted demo-models.  Ah, the pitfalls of attachment and desire.

But no.  I will be strong.  I will.

(Ipad, you will be mine!  Oh yes….)