Investments

Each Ipod has lasted about 6 months… sometimes 3 or 4. Six seems to be the average lifetime for an Ipod in my possession.

I lost my last Ipod somewhere in the Lower East Side on Saturday night. Possibly under a bar stool at Shorty’s 32, maybe in the cab on my way to a party, or at the loft, where, I made my way through pea-coats and skinny jeans to the wine bar in the back, tossing my belongings under the coat rack along the way. I noticed it was missing later when I dumped the contents of my purse to dig for a last cigarette.

The sense of loss began to swell quietly. At first, it felt so common and easy to ignore. “I’ll find it later,” I tell myself. Suppression sounds like wine poured into a plastic cup, and I am summoned to the kitchen, where smokers are huddled around the window flicking wet palms of rolling paper and filters onto the street below. Loss can be consuming. At the window, I peer out over the city lights and pine, wondering how pitiful I have become, considering the sheer number of fallen.

“Doesn’t this mean anything to you?” I ask myself. “How could you be so reckless?”

So the Ipod is now… either in the pocket of a duplicitous hipster, the palms of my cabby’s teenager, or was found lying under the streetlights of Houston, now scavenged and sold. My Craigslist posting was as futile as a “Missed Connection:”

“Have you seen my Ipod? Attached to white headphones? It’s small and really cute and has an awesome playlist!?”

I never thought I was dependent, but merely complimented, by this attachment. With an Ipod, I run faster, I am stronger, more independent, original … detached. I imagine myself the character in the Ipod commercials, an anonymous black silhouette against a florescent green screen pop-and-locking, flipping waist length dreadlocks like Lenny Kravitz.

Without one, I despair…feeling the numbness of an amputee. My life: incomplete. I cannot concentrate, or run, or keep a schedule, or sleep at night. I regret that I am not trying hard enough protect this essential device, that holds, stores, and records… think of how many words are contained in that 1GB of memory? 

Maybe I should talk to someone.

When an Ipod breaks, I am reluctant to click, “Restore,” thinking, “No, surely, this will never work.” I try and sometimes it does work… usually not at all. But for a minute, there is hope. You can simply clear the memory, “Restore to Original Factory Settings,” to produce a clean slate, a clean start. Denying that the damage (from rain, or boots, or reckless disregard) has already been done. 

Everyone at Apple seems to know exactly what is wrong: “Haven’t you tried restoring it?” When you tell a friend it’s gone, they think they know exactly how you feel, “Dude, that totally sucks, I am sorry.” What you want to say is, “Really? Do you really know how I feel? Do you really know what this feels like?” But you can’t say that, because you kind of feel like an asshole that it hurts so much.

I used to drop the Pink Nano on the floor and it would begin to play. There are other tricks to make them last a little longer- flicking the on-and-off, holding buttons, shaking, banging… hurling. I have owned… (in chronological order) the Original White Nano, a Pink Nano, a 2G Silver Shuffle, a 1G Silver Shuffle, a gifted Red Nano, and my most recent loss… new last month…a 1G Green Shuffle.

Today I went (reluctantly) to Best Buy for my 3rd replacement this year. Now, I am holding the new “Vibrant Blue” 1G Shuffle that looks like something familiar… something I have held before…though I am not confident in its usage or my ability to keep it for very long. I did, however, buy insurance, optimistic that even if it is lost or broken sometime within the Apple Warranty period, I felt better investing in the worth and extension of its lifetime. 

“Insurance?” I ask my friend. “What do you think?”

“Well, I mean, knowing you… yes. I mean, nothing against you… but, yes… of course.”

A confession: I feel like I am progressing… as though this one really matters…like this will be the one that outlasts its own warranty. There was something promising about the investment in insurance, the hope in its endurance, or the knowledge that even when it breaks, I will have the illusion of my money’s worth. And when it is lost, at least I can say that I tried.