An iPod Odyssey!

Lord knows I tried. I resisted the call and beckon of the iPod. What the heck did I NEED one for? The only time I have to listen to music, I’m either at home or in my car and I have CD players in both. I made my own custom CDs with the music I wanted to listen to for either occasion.

So I didn’t buy one. Who needs it? Just another yuppie toy that everyone and their dog just felt they needed. If not an iPod, then an iRiver or a Dell Jukebox or whatever the heck Napster calls their player.

Then it started to get serious. I’m not sure when the summoning began. Was it when iTunes opened their music store and a flood of music I thought lost forever was at my beck and (credit card) call? Was it when the arguments started in various online forums over whether or no the iPod was overrated? I mean these people were passionate about whose MP3 player was better, had superior features at some given price point. I hadn’t read this diatribe over a piece of hardware since the old Mac vs. PC days. My God people, it’s a MUSIC PLAYER! It won’t cure cancer or hit the winning field goal with 3 seconds on the clock or stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. I guess at the time I just didn’t get it.

Then I started seeing people act peculiar. Shaking their heads and walking with a dance to their step or singing (usually very badly) to some popular song at seemingly inappropriate times. Normally I would attribute this to schizophrenia or a bad reaction to shellfish, but they all seemed to have one thing in common. Little white earpods. I knew what it meant, but I was in denial.

What probably put me over the top was the first time I actually held one in my hands. I had avoided this before because when it comes to gadgets, I am a weak man. I had a feeling that if I used one, I would need to have one. They say knowing your faults and bad behavior patterns is the first step on the road to recovery. Well I’ve been working on this for about 44 years (not surprisingly, this is how old I am), and I haven’t gotten past the first step.

One of my Tae Kwon Do instructors had bought an iPod Mini and was showing to me. I fell in love the first time I held it in my hands. The menu screen was well laid out and it was very easy to maneuver around to the various screens. I wanted one. Badly. Still I resisted. I just couldn’t justify to myself spending $250 on a freaking music player. My health suffered as I held myself back.

The final straw was the last MacWorld and the iPod Shuffle. While I couldn’t see myself spending $250 on an iPod, $99 or $149 was a little more doable. Unfortunately the furshlugginer things are more popular than season tickets for nude Playboy Twins combination Beach Volleyball/Mud wrestling events. Every time I went to either of the close by Apple Stores, they were never in stock. At least until this week. I dropped by the Clarendon Virginia store and was stunned to see them on display! There they were in all their Trident chewing gum sized glory! Shaking slightly, I went to one of the friendly Apple Store employees and asked if I could get a 1 Gb Shuffle. She looked upon me piteously and said that they were still going through the sign-up list of people who had already asked for one. My look of anguish and despair must have touched a soft spot on her soul as she asked me if I wanted to put my name at the bottom of their list. ‘No.’ I said with a lump in my throat. ‘I’¦I’ll come back another time.’ She smiled indulgently and turned away.

I left the store with a heavy heart. On my way home, I decided to stop by Best Buy to look at some digital cameras that I have been thinking about. I never even made it to that section of the store. As I passed by their display of Cell Phones and (yes) MP3 players, I noticed a locked glass cabinet with some familiar boxes in it. OH YES! RATURE! iPod Shuffles!

Shaking slightly, I motioned to one of the employees and questioned whether those were for sale or part of a sinister conspiracy to slowly drive me insane. He looked at me oddly, took one step back, and rested one hand on the cell phone that would undoubtedly call store security. ‘They’re for sale’ he said. ‘No waiting list?’ I asked in what I thought was a disinterested fashion, but probably my eyes were slowly turning in opposite circles. The salesman assured me they were not on anyone’s waiting list. ‘May..may I hold one?’

The salesman moved in what to my mind seemed very slow. He unlocked the cabinet and put one in my hands without ever touching me. I’m sure he felt that whatever fevered insane problem I had was infectious and he didn’t want any part of it.

While holding the iPod in my hands, I noticed it was the 512 Mb version. ‘Do you have any of the 1 Gb Shuffles?’ I asked. Fearing my probable response, he put himself behind a soccer mom with two kids for protection. ‘No. That’s the only model we have in stock.’ Inwardly, I screamed in anger at the gods for teasing me so. I wanted the bigger model because of some of the long trips I occasionally take. Never mind all the reasons I didn’t buy one before, I HAD to have the bigger model!

I then noticed a yellow sticker on one of the few iPod minis in the case. Marked down 15 percent as an open box special! It was silver and it called out to me. So I bought it. $210 bucks later I walked out of the store a happy man. At least until I got home and I unwrapped my new purchase.

It was missing the belt clip. There were no black stretchy things that resembled stockings to go over the earpieces. The cables were dirty. This just would not do. I returned to the store and ended up getting a new iPod mini in gold. I unwrapped it, set my iPod iTune preferences and plugged it in.

The iPod lit up and downloaded all the songs I specified in very little time and even named itself Guy Serle’s iPod. My quest was over and I was victorious! Of course I spent way more money and time than I had originally thought I would, but I was the winner. Now I had my own iPod, um, just like everyone else’s iPod.

So why do I feel so common?