It's a Mac Thing...You Wouldn't Understand

The events unfolded like this:

With my morning coffee in hand, I was preparing to leave for the day, but first stopped to update my iPod with the latest Slate Magazine podcasts. I plugged it in only to hear a frightening whirrrr of my iPod's hard drive and then see that scary Apple screen where you know it's re-setting or whatever. I was alarmed, yes, but nothing prepared me for what happened next. My iPod got a "dead face" screen!!!! Seriously, there were X's for the eyes and a frown. I panicked, but like all good moms, I only allowed myself a moment before focusing on its recovery. With adrenaline racing, I grabbed it, left the coffee, and pealed out of my apt complex toward the Apple store.

Like a mother with a wounded child, I busted through the double doors with wild eyes and my iPod in my outstretched hands (this was all in slo-mo, of course). The nice Apple people pointed me toward the Genius Bar where the news I'd feared worst came true: my iPod was dead. I stood there, blank, eyes blinking attempting to absorb the shock of it all (soundtrack in my head: "The Scientist" by Coldplay). My "genius" explained that my only real option was to get a new one. A new one???? I was incredulous. Desperate. But this one was like my child! Sure, in the year and a half since I'd purchased it, the Mac wizards had devised newer, flashier and more colorful versions, but mine had been with me to Japan, for goodness sake!

In the end (after breathing through a paper bag repeatedly), I was convinced to participate in the iPod recycling program. The sweet Apple boy at the store attempted to reassure me by explaining that my old iPod would be melted into new iPods and, therefore, would live on. A reincarnation of sorts. I smiled, meekly, and accepted my new, sleek, color-screened iPod with more than a little ambivalence. Now, I can't help but stare at the impostor (still in its box) and think how much my old one would've loved the DC metro rides... Sniff, sniff.