This is not an April Fool's Joke. Really.

Okay, so I'm a total geek. Here's proof positive.

One of the most wonderful things that ever happens to me at work is when someone drops by my office and tosses an Amazon box on my desk. It's like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Arbor Day all wrapped up in one little box with the Amazon logo on it.

[Cue the self-righteous-support-your-local-bookstore police] "Yeah, but shouldn't you support your local bookstores? Buy local, dude. You're supporting the Man!"

First off, Amazon ain't the Man. AIG is the Man.

Second off, my local bookstore that I really enjoy is unlikely to carry Freshwater Macroinvertebrates of Northeastern North America. Unlikely, did I say? Let's just say it took a long time to find it, and the local bookseller would have to special order it from an obscure academic press, and in the end, probably lose money on the deal.

It has been 19 years since I was last in school, and frankly, I don't miss it at all. Maybe if I had gone to grad school in entomology instead of social psychology I would be writing in a blog called psychobugdude.blogspot.com* instead of canoelover. Either way, it's water under the bridge. Crystal clear water under the bridge. Water teeming with megaloptera, coleoptera, trichoptera, and of course, odonata. But I seriously digress.

I opened the box with enthusiasm. Our accountant, Mary, got caught up in the excitement and said, "Ooh! What's that?"

"I got a couple of new books." I showed her said books.

She studied them, blinked a few times, looked at me.

"Wow. You really are a geek." She laughed and returned to her spreadsheets. Would a rose by any other name...

It isn't possible to not love a book with such wonderful illustrations. I think that a Color Your Own Coleoptera coloring book would sell dozens, maybe scores of copies. I may just create a series of macroinvertebrate coloring books, not to make any money, but because it would be fun, and I'd probably lose several thousand dollars on the project. I suppose if you want to lose money, better to create educational coloring books on aquatic insects than at the local casino. At least a bunch of kindergarten kids would learn that stepping on macroinvertebrates is really low-class.

So today was a good day.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

*Actually, I checked. Psychobugdude.blogspot.com was not taken. It is now.