I do not like that Sam-I-Am

It was a little after eight on a Saturday night at the moomincabin. The Commander had finished the 5,000-page book she was reading and it wasn’t quiiiiite time for her to trundle off to bed. “I need something to read!” declared that venerable woman. She wasn’t talking to anyone in particular but I was sitting right there and I am a problem solving sort of person so I started thinking about what she could read. Alas, I didn’t really have anything. She had already read the girl-who book that I was reading (and still am). And then I remembered that I had “Green Eggs and Ham” on my phone.

I don’t know exactly why I downloaded the Green Eggs and Ham app to my phone. I know the book pretty much by heart. I rarely have any small children to entertain these days. And what about small children and smart phones anyway? When the beach urchins were little, we didn’t even have a cell phone around. We read actual books with paper pages and we read them in the reading chair. Or here or there. Or at the park or on the beach or in the car or with a mouse or in the rain. Or anywhere. At any rate, we read a lot! I think we were instrumental in keeping Border’s in business for all those years and we went to the library too and once I walked into the Blue and Only Bathroom and there was Elizilla standing by the Blue and Only Toilet with a stack of books, using the cord pull on the venetian blind (blinds?) to check them out. Books. We loved books. We read them anywhere and everywhere.

Anyway. I downloaded the Green Eggs and Ham app because it exists, and because I could. I also had this funny little feeling that it might come in handy someday in some weird little way. I didn’t know how. I work with a bunch of old fuddy-duddies just like meeeeeeee and I doubt that grandchildren are anywhere in my near future.

So here was The Commander asking for something to read. I faarrrrred up the Green Eggs and Ham app and handed my phone to her. Now, mind you, The Commander has her own iPhone. She may not use it to upload stupid little videos to Facebook any time soon but she is proficient at making and answering phone calls on it. And she was pretty good at swiping the pages in the Green Eggs and Ham app. I will say that after about 20 minutes of that, she was ready to retire for the evening.

The iPhone seems to be a pretty good choice for the octogenarian set. I’m not quite sure what I think about letting young children play with it. But then again, we had computers when our kids were young and they played little games on those. Elizilla played Sticky Bear ABC on the Apple II+ and Mouse used to stand on a chair and play concentration on our first Mac. Over and over and over and over ad nauseam until I finally got tired of constantly starting a new game for her and showed her to use the menu. She was two.

I think I probably would have downloaded books and games for my beach urchins if I’d had an iPhone back in those days. But I doubt we’d have completely abandoned actual books with paper pages. Because we liked books. Lots of them. Anywhere and everywhere.

P.S. I DO like my own personal Sam-I-Am, just in case there was any kind of confusion over the title. She’s one of my all-time BFFs!

2 Responses to “I do not like that Sam-I-Am”

  1. Margaret Says:

    Not a fan of Dr. Seuss so I would have rolled my eyes at you. Would I get addicted to apps if I had a iPhone? Being an obsessive type, I think I’d better steer clear. 😉

  2. Kathy Farnell Says:

    Sneeches is my all time favorite Dr. Suess book. I even have a stuffed sneech that I hold while I read the story. (Froggy, you have competition!) In the same book, there is also a story about pale green pants wih nobody inside ’em. That is a good one too. Green Eggs and Ham is silly, but I like it. I do like green eggs (just add blueberry jam) but I have never had green ham.