I’d been eyeing up a Kindle for about a year. I was ready, committed. I was getting a new tech friend, that would let me read endlessly; shop for new books without a pause in reading; allow me to store my books on memory cards to organize them for work and for fun. Then, when I was about to click Checkout in my cart, the Kindle 2 came out.

The sleek new simple design was alluring-so thin and light! None of the 80’s angles that made Kindle 1 so, umm, ugly? But, also, no memory card slot…or replaceable battery…or cover! After a year of reading reviews, checking on the price, researching options, the Kindle 1 passed out of existence into the limbo of eBay. And the Kindle 2 just didn’t light my fire the same way.

So, in my grief and mourning over the loss of something I never had, I looked at other electronic reading possibilities. Netbooks were terrific but too big and with a laptop I already loved, there was just no room for another, albeit small and unassuming, computer. Then, I read a review of the Kindle in which an iPod Touch owner wondered why people would pay $359 for a Kindle that would read books well, surf the internet and play music badly, and not do much of anything else, when for $100 less you could get an iPod touch that did all those things perfectly, with a touch screen AND had the ability to be used as an eReader? Sure the screen is smaller, but you get used to it, said the review. I had my doubts- it’s really small for reading, I thought. It’s just a glorified mp3 player. And, after all, it’s an iPod.

Caving into Apple and their Matrix-like iTunes control center is a big step! I rejected the idea and read reviews about Sony’s new eReader. It has a touch screen! But the cost is even more than a Kindle 2, and the eBook store is the same one you can go to with the iPod. The eReader has no wireless connection at all. Snyc or die. But, the iPod keeps track of my calendar, music, photos, books, games, you name it. It was starting to seem like a no-brainer. But still, me with an iPod? Me, inside the box?

I had to push my pride out f the way and admit it. I was wrong. I was wrong to refuse to partake of the Apple table for so long; perfectly good iPods had been at my disposal for years and I had disdained to touch them, even looked down on what they had to offer.

So, with a hanging head, I went to Costco and bought my new technological best friend, an 8GB iPod Touch, joined the herd and became an iSheep.