Last sunday I found myself on the wrong side of one of those anecdotes that keep CSR’s sane; I did something please-hold-mute-
After getting a major project into production on Friday, I swore to myself that I would do absolutely nothing productive for the entire weekend, and until Sunday afternoon I kept that vow. At this point I discovered that I only had two clean pairs of underpants left, and one of those was a rather uncomfortable g-string. I had no choice – I had to do some laundry…
I filled a basket with dark coloured clothing, and took it to the laundry room on my floor; to my amazement their was a washer ready and waiting for me, and I had plenty of quarters. I loaded the machine, added detergent and fabric softner, and started the machine running on the gentle cycle. I returned to my apartment, set a timer, and lay on the couch watching Anime until the timer went off.
I then returned to the laundry room, transferred my things to the dryer, and set the machine to run for an hour on tumble dry low. Again I returned to my apartment, set the timer, lay on the couch, waited for the timer, ignored it, and continued my couch warming duties.
Eventually I remembered I still had things in the dryer, so I got up and went to collect them. When I opened the door of the dryer, two little pieces of plastic fell out: one a small white button, the other a donut shaped ring of plastic. “That’s odd”, I thought. “Is the dryer broken”. I removed the two pieces of plastic and placed them carefully on top of the dryer, and started to remove my clothes and place them in the basket. One pair of pants later I realised where the plastic had come from.
My original series 10Gb iPod had grown tired of my lustful stares at the new 30’s flaunting themselves in the student stores, and had decided to end it all by stowing away in a cargo pocket in one of the pairs of pants I’d washed. I knew I shouldn’t have put so much Gothic/Industrial stuff on the poor lass; it overwhelmed the Progressive House and Tech House, and the Patsy Cline collection just pushed her over the edge.
I’m proud to say that when my powers of speech returned I had the presence of mind to say the only words that truly fit the situation: “It’s kind of… a bummer”.
I replaced the two plastic pieces into the dial, placed the corpse in a body bag (well, sock), and returned to my apartment in a somewhat darkened mood. I then removed the iPod from its sleeve, and stripped off the metal backing to make sure there was no liquid left inside.
My drive to work the next day was made particularly unpleasant by the fact the only CD in the car, and that was a Rush CD I bought basically for two songs. There was nothing for it. I went up to the campus store, explained the whole humiliating story to my friends who work there, receiving sympathy from the mac-heads, and mockery from the un-switched. A swipe of the card later I was the proud owner of a new 30Gb iPod, and the shamed murderer of a loyal 10Gb friend.
Today I decided that I’d waited long enough.
