Three Questions

Lots of people like to read.
Then there are people that are addicts.
Another way of looking at "addictions"... it's like, hey, you are a "specialist" in this particular field.
But the downside of every type of addiction is that without the chemical rush it affords you... you are somewhat debilitated.
I do not at all believe the reports we sometimes see that tell us that books [the real kind, the kind you hold in your hands and you turn the pages] are on their way out.
Going out of style, in favor of electronic accessibility to information, etc.
No. Neither do I believe that maps or globes or atlases are going to be defunct because of the advent of GPS systems.
The only place I think that books are perhaps suffering a decline in sales is in the realm of the purely informational.
I'm referring to encyclopedias, dictionaries, phone books [when's the last time YOU bought one?].... that kind of jazz.
Ask any guy that's out there in his faux-leather Oxfords [meanwhile, his car is leaking oil on your driveway] trying to unload a $3,000 set of Britannicas lately!
Because seriously, you can find all of this stuff online!
But who wants to read the latest Margaret Atwood or John Irving [...it's about 8 more days till his new one is available here in Canada, not that I'm rabidly x'ing the days off on my calendar or anything...] who wants to read Nabokov on a Kindle?
COME ON!
You want a BOOK!
You want to feel it, smell it, shove it in your armpit, KISS IT now and then, rub it on your..... [I better stop there!]

OK, so how do you know if you are addicted to books?
I ought to be an expert on this topic, so here goes...... just off the top of my head now, not even trying....

1) Do you sometimes avoid otherwise meaningful social interaction to read just one or two..... or three...... more chapters? OK, let's be honest. A hundred and eighty more pages?

2) You leave the house and you are halfway to wherever you are going and you realize you do not have your book with you.
Do you have an a) panic attack, b) spastic seizure, c) brain aneurism, d) coronary event, and/or e) just drive directly into the nearest bridge abutment?
Perhaps a), followed by b), c), d) and ending in e)?

3) Is the single greatest physical fear in your life losing your eyesight? And not because you can only SMELL hamburgers now when you eat them, but because you will now have to learn Braille?

If you have answered yes to any one of the questions above, you are a Book Addict.
I answered "yes" to all three.
Let's face it.
You and I.
We are exactly the thing whispered in the ears of those who not only orchestrated the "intervention" but personally drove us to The Treatment Center.
Each of us is a --> [_______].
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