We’re standing on the curb, waiting for the light to change, when a guy walks up and signals us to take our headphones off. He wants to ask a question.

“So, what’s the deal,” the guy asks us, “with your blue iPod?”

“It’s not a ‘blue iPod,’” we say.

“OK, sorry. What’s the deal with your… what, cerulean iPod?”

“It’s not a cer—look, it’s not an iPod at all. It’s an mp3 player. See?”

“Oh. I thought that was the same thing.”

“No, not every mp3 player is an iPod? This one is not. It’s the iRiver H10. It is not made by Apple.”

“Hunh.” He stares at it, uncomprehending. “Looks cool. If I was going to get an iPod, I’d want a blue one like that.”

Now we’re exasperated. “iPod, iPod, iPod! Why are you fixated on iPods? Look! This thing is slim and compact, hardly bigger than a deck of cards, but it can store and play over five thousand songs!”

“It’s bigger than a deck of cards.”

“Yes! So we have already established! But not much bigger! Maybe it’s the volume of… oh, like a deck with 65 cards in it.”

“There’s no such thing as a 65-card deck.”

“No! No one says there is! It’s just for a frame of reference! And look, it’s 20 gigs, it has sensibly arranged controls, and its internal battery delivers up to 16 hours of non-stop music on a charge. It plays DRM, Audible, Napster 2 Go, and it has a color LCD for looking at photos! Oh, and an integrated text viewer for reading paperless novels, news, whatever!

“It has a built-in microphone so you can use it as a voice recorder—and a built-in FM tuner with both automatic and manual channel-search functions! And a timer! Plus, it’s lovingly refurbed, like a newly risen iRiver phoenix! All this and it’s not an iPod. Get it? See? Fleetwood Mac was right all along—you really can go your own way!”

“Yeah, I see what you’re saying.”

We exhaled heavily.

“So, if you play solitaire on that iPod, does it play with the regular deck, or with 65 cards?”

“YOU CAN’T—THERE’S NO SOLI—IT’S NOT … You know what? Yes. Yes, if you play solitaire on my blue iPod, it deals from a deck of 65 cards.”

“Awesome,” he said. “I gotta get one of those.” And he ambled off into the night.

Back to top