The Spy in the Sky

Photo reproduced with the permission of Don Mullaney.

       

      I don't understand how it works.  A GPS is built into my car.  I program a state, then a town,

       then a street and number.  The lady inside my screen tells me I must turn around and get 

going in the right direction. 

    Somehow, a beam is being transmitted from my GPS device to a spy in the sky.  The spy is telling the lady that I must get turned around NOW.

     I don't want to.  I happen to know a shortcut to the area I'm going.  So I ignore the pleasant lady.  I keep going straight.

     The lady tells me to turn around at the next road and go back, since I've missed my turn.  I keep going.

     The lady is still listening to the spy in the sky.  She tells me again to turn around.  I ignore her and sail past the next turn-off.

     The lady gets insistent.  "Turn around in three more miles at the next right and head in the opposite direction."  The spy in the sky is whispering in her ear that I'm not a good listener.  I keep going, for four miles.  "Shut up!"  I tell her.  "I don't need you till later."

     The lady gives up.  She knows I'm a stubborn fool, so she redirects me from that point along another route.  "Finally!  Good riddance," I say.

     But she's only laughing at me.  She knows the mileage may be shorter, but the road is slower.  The spy in the sky is rolling his eyes, while a thunderstorm breaks over my car.  The road is two-lane and circuitous and I can hardly see.  Lady knew best!

     There's something else I don't understand.  How does my e-reader tell its mama where I stopped reading?  And how can mama know whether I've finished the book or decided to abandon it?  Also, how fast I read it?

     Is this something the spy in the sky (Amazon and Barnes and Noble) needs to know?  Will it affect how many books are published in that genre and by which authors?  It seems the spy in the sky and its puppet ladies are interested not only in how I get to my destination, but in whether they'll make a profit by pigeonholing authors.  I need to yell at someone, but unlike the lady in my car, my e-reader mama doesn't speak.