And no, this is not some sinister reference to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Nor is it an attempt to measure our marriage using the metric system. But earlier this week, Carol and I celebrated our 1000th day anniversary. How do I know this, and why am I choosing to measure my marriage in days rather than years? (Easy now. I’m also not suggesting each day of our marriage has seemed like a year, and that 1000 days has seemed like its own Reich.) The answer, very simply, is my Kindle reader.

   I’ve  written about this before. Although I consider myself an old school avid reader, I cheerfully made the switch from real books to ebooks when I discovered the downloadable dictionary. Once I saw that you can just press a finger on the word you don’t know and a dictionary definition pops up, I was hooked. No more bookmarking the page and hefting up the Webster’s and trying to remember how the word was spelled, nor making lists to look up later (which I never did). My vocabulary soared (as did an almost predilection for misusing it). 

   But back to our anniversary. 

One of the features of my Kindle is its nerdometer, which tracks both the number of consecutive weeks I’ve read, as well as the number of  consecutive days.

   One of the features of my Kindle is its nerdometer, which tracks both the number of consecutive weeks I’ve read, as well as the number of  consecutive days. This week it recorded 1000 consecutive days of reading. It had also recorded 224 consecutive weeks, which is way more than 1000 days.  

  But, again, back to our anniversary. 

  Curious about the disconnect a few months ago, I backtracked the consecutive days to day one. Day one turned out to be Valentine’s Day 2020, and zero day would have been February 13th, which was our wedding day. (And yes, that meant I had read on the Valentine’s Day immediately following our wedding the day before. So much for honeymoons one might suggest.) But it was clear now that my nerdometer was also tracking my marriage. Thus began a commitment to reading every day that would quite happily match my commitment to my marriage. How about that as an advantage to marrying a nerd?

   Just as in any marriage, there have been stumbles and rough patches along the way. Daytripping, vacations and holidays like Christmas, New Year’s Day and Easter (as well as two wedding anniversaries, come to think of it) have tested my commitment. But so far – knock on wood – I’ve survived those challenges, and my reading streak remains intact. 

   But nothing is guaranteed. Like any good marriage, reading every day takes work. Sometimes you might have to shut yourself off from everything and everyone to get the pages in. It could even come down, say, to an anniversary dinner, where you’d be waiting for your beloved to excuse herself to the ladies room in order to sneak in the page or two at the table necessary to get credit for the day.

   And what if this reading commitment became an obsession, and would lead to divorce. It’s too horrible to consider. I wouldn’t be able to read that day, because I’d have to start a whole new streak in my Kindle!

   Well,  I can’t let that happen. Happy Anniversary, Carol. May there be many thousands of days to come!