I suppose it was about five years ago. Erica was explaining that some dude had accidentally erased all of the music on her "iPod." This, apparently, was some sort of tragedy. I tried to sympathize. "I can't believe that jerk! Are you alright?" I consoled.
Meanwhile, I didn't even know what an iPod was.
Have I mentioned that I've never owned a portable music player of any sort? Unless, of course, you count the Magnavox boombox, which is semi-portable. I mean, it has a handle. If I wanted to, I could hoist that baby up on my shoulder and walk down Jersey Avenue in some Reebok high-tops, pretending it's 1986. Then there's also the smaller Philips AZ-series boombox, which is a bit more portable — smaller than the Magnavox, but larger than a Walkman, for instance, and somewhat resembling Johnny Five from Short Circuit. I kept it in the backseat of my '88 Toyota Corolla after the radio had been pried from the dashboard for the third time. It worked like a charm, but batteries were expensive.
If you asked me why I never owned a portable music player, I would probably say:
2. I enjoy hearing the sounds of the outside world
3. I don't really need one since I've almost always got music playing in the iPod of my mind — my "mindPod," I like to call it Well, things have changed. I'm malleable. It may take me five or six or seven years, but hey. The Shure SE310 earphones were bugging me, at first. I had a difficult time getting them to rest comfortably and snugly in my ears, and, once they were in, their presence there was simply annoying. I was aware of them. And that slight annoyance took away from the listening experience. But, I got over it. I've simply grown accustomed to them. I don't mind the way they feel and I've even developed a little up-over-and-twist insertion method. I don't think I have to get into the details of that. I do want to experiment more with the alternate sleeves, however.
