Death of an iPod
I’m becoming convinced that there’s no such thing as a good habit. When we settle into habitual routine, we sometimes overlook something when that routine is disrupted.
If I am out of the house alone, my iPod is in my front-left pocket and my headphones are in my ears. I only turn the thing off when I arrive at my classes, or if I just want to take a break for a bit. Without fail, when I arrive home, regardless of the time of day, the headphones are in my ears again. So the first thing I do when I get inside is take them out, pull my iPod from out of my pocket, pause it, lock it, and put it down on the kitchen counter or my computer desk. At the end of the day, before my pants come off, everything else (wallet, mints, papers, whatever) comes out. This is the routine I’ve had for the past 21 months.
My first iPod was a Nano that I picked up on a trip back home in the States four years ago. It lasted 18 months before it just died. I figured since I wore it on a lanyard at the gym, repeated exposure to sweat might have had something to do with it. I didn’t bother trying to get it repaired. Then three months later, a friend gave me a 160GB iPod Classic for Christmas. Yay! I had music again. And to date, I’ve only put about 14GB of data on it. So much empty space.
All was well. That thing is really tough, having survived a good deal of abuse. I seem to be getting clumsier as I get older. I can’t count the number of times my iPod slipped from my hands. Sometimes violently so. It’s dented and chipped in places and it has a couple of nasty scratches on the screen. But it was working as well as ever until today. That’s because yesterday I broke my routine.
Every Saturday I teach for four-and-a-half hours. Sometimes I finish at 7:30, sometimes at 4:00. Yesterday, I finished at four. I went to Myeong Dong for a haircut, then met my wife for dinner. From the time I met my wife at 5:30 until the time we got home around 8:30, my iPod and earphones stayed in my pocket. We did a bit of shopping on the way home and, being that the role of mule is reserved for the husband, I was carrying the bags. I dropped the bags in the kitchen, went to the bedroom and pulled my wallet, change and mints out of my pockets, then took off my pants and tossed them in the laundry basket. Notice the missing step.
I never have anything in my left pocket except my iPod and I always take it out before I go to the bedroom. As such, I never check my left pocket when I take my pants off. My mind being on other things, I mindlessly went through my routine without even realizing that the iPod was still in my pants. This morning, my wife did laundry.
I met my trainer for a tough workout this morning. I had just enough time to shower before heading out for a special Sunday class I’m doing (only one more week of that, thank goodness). Before leaving, I spent a couple of minutes looking for my iPod. Just as I was giving up the search, I had the horrible realization that I might not have taken it out of my pants last night. But, I hadn’t heard any clunking from the washing machine so I assumed it was lying around somewhere. My wife promised to look for it while I was gone. I was almost at the bus stop when she called my cell and said, “I’ve got some bad news.” iPods aren’t yet waterproof.
As far as iPods go, it was a good one. It shall be missed. On the bright side, now I have an excuse to buy an iPod Touch 