I found my old iPod today.

I sort of stopped using it after a while because its battery life ended up being something like 20 minutes or so, which wasn't really effective when I was routinely taking 30 minute bus rides. Then I sort of forgot about it--and then I lost it. My brother got a newer iPod, gave me his blocky old one--and that's the one I use now.

My old one was in my coat pocket. I took it out. The slip case it was in was a faintly red color. It's supposed to be white.

It's also really dirty.

But I plugged it in to my computer, expecting that it was long gone and done... and it looked that way. You could hear it as it tried turning on, but then it just gave out. It gave me a "please wait--battery very low" screen that I've never seen before, which I took to just mean "start arranging your next iPod purchase" or something. BUT THEN--!

It started charging. It still had life! I would be able to relive those special times in which I listened to it--to and from class, whenever I didn't want to listen to my roommates conversations--it wasn't actually special or a unique experience for me in any way, but it was an iPod and it served its purpose, and it was nice.

I was going to write in this little box here about the stunning resolve about Apple products--how this thing survived all the crap that I put in my pocket and came out looking like crap but singing like roses (the appropriate phrase is "smelling like roses", but... I can't think of any phrases that might work right here), how I felt like traveling back to campus and then walking to Nicholson just for the hell of it, how I was considering making the switch to Apple for everything--so to celebrate was was going to be a celebratory post here, I got out my headphones and plugged it into my iPod. I picked some random song that was going to be loud and glorious, and then the words would flow out of me through the sheer beauty of the sound emanating from this resilient little machine.

The song started. And... there was no sound emanating from the right earphone. Tried another song--same thing. Tried headphones in my computer, not sure where the problem was--headphones worked fine, the problem lied within the iPod.

Lesson to be learned--don't leave your high tech gadget in your pocket for two years.