The I-Pod

The I-pod has revolutionized how we walk anywhere. I’ve had mine for about three months and I feel like I’m a different person because of it. After about two weeks with the device, the I-pod becomes more than just a contraption to listen to music. Before you know it, the I-pod consumes you and the addiction begins. Suddenly you can’t walk anywhere without having the I-pod on you, whether it be walking to work, a two minute walk to the store or a trip to the bathroom. The music soothes you as you move, kind of keeps you going. I think the major appeal to walking everywhere with music is that you kind of feel like your in a movie. If a slow ballad comes on, maybe you’re in the part of a movie where you’re pondering something important. When the beat picks up, you’re at the point in a movie when the character throw caution in the wind and is determined to get something done. Whenever Eye of the Tiger comes on to my I-pod, watch out because there’s a good chance I’ll attack a random person on my walk.

I enjoy watching other people walking with their I-pod’s, you can learn a lot about a person. It’s always interesting to watch someone just start to rock out and sing out loud. I know I’ve been victim of that, just walking along and a great song comes on. Some kind of mild case of taurettes kicks in and I feel the need to play air drums and sing a few lines. It’s embarrassing but there’s nothing I can do about it, just the power of the I-pod.

When it was very cold this winter, I would get all bundled up to face the cold NYC wind-chill. Part of my process was putting on my headphones under my hat and then putting the I-pod in my inside coat pocket where I have a chance of changing the song without actually touching the I-pod, thereby keeping me warm at all times. That being said, my biggest problem with my I-pod is that I rarely charge it and I have to deal with it dying on me a lot. So quite often, I’d be all bundled up, half-way through my walk and suddenly the music stops. The normal person would probably figure out that the I-pod died, take the headphones out of his or her ears, put the thing away and continue walking. I couldn’t do that because I didn’t want to get cold so I just kept it in my ears. Let me tell you, it’s weird using headphones without any music coming out. Sometimes to compensate and to make passer-bys think that I’m actually listening to music, I’ll start dancing in place, maybe sing a line from a random song off the top of my head. The logic is that maybe I won’t get to listen to any music, but at least the person next to me thinks I’m listening to music…

Updated 2/11/05 - I'd like to post the funniest comment I saw for this article. It was written by Steve who also has a great site called Simply Amazins which you can visit through the link on the sidebar.

Rather than pretending to listen to music with headphones on, I think it would be much more crafty to actually start speaking ABOUT the people who are walking by.

Let them think that you're receiving special instructions about them:"Yeah, the guy with the blue shirt is standing right here... No, I don't think he suspects anything.

The operation will go on as planned."Then smile with the knowledge that you just freaked out someone who will be completely paranoid for the rest of the day.