Since I am technologically still living in 2003, I deferred to my friend’s advice (who has teenagers who are plugged in non-stop) and she advised me to pick up a pair of Skullcandy headphones. “They’re not too expensive and they work great, plus they’re pretty durable,” she said. Okay. Sounds good to me. Target had them on sale last week so I picked myself up a pair. I even decided to borrow my daughter’s MP3 player and download one of my own playlists on it so I could really jam out and get pumped up. I had a big night ahead of me…It was back to running after my six-day hiatus I took after the Martian 10K race. I was not looking forward to it. I needed something to get me motivated.
I changed into my workout clothes, slipped on my running shoes and plugged the MP3 player into my laptop. It synced right up to itunes. Yay! That was easy.
I celebrated too soon.
I figured out how to get my playlist on the MP3 player, but then I couldn’t figure out how to access it. Stupid MP3 player. It just seemingly scrambled up all the songs so I had about 10 High School Musical songs with a few Hannah Montana numbers and Jonas Brothers beats, with my ultra-cool music intermixed every so often. Ugh. This was just dumb. I kept scrolling and hitting menus and trying just about every single button and option I could find. Then, suddenly I got some icon that said, “Audiofiles.” Huh? What the heck was that? The MP3 player must have come downloaded with some sample audio books, cuz all of a sudden, I had Eric Clapton’s Memoir being read to me. I couldn’t get the stupid thing to shut off. Gaahhh!! I was about to throw the thing across the room. I hadn’t even made it out the door to the gym yet. After hitting every button at least four more times and shutting the thing off and on, I finally got Eric to cease his reading...
And I was back to High School Musical and Hannah Montana. The frustration I was feeling was volcanic.
I scrolled through and realized that every few songs I’d just have to hit the fast forward button and skip over the teeny-bop stuff. Oh well. I’d wasted over 30 minutes trying to figure out this stupid piece of technology. I annoyingly shook my head and figured I better get my butt out the door to the gym or I’d never get there.
I picked a treadmill in the back row under the huge ceiling fan. I started walking on it as I fiddled with the MP3 player and securely shoved the earbuds into my ears. I pushed up my pace and settled into my jog. The cord was jumping all over the place and bouncing around. Ah! It was totally annoying and distracting. How do people do this? I moved the MP3 player to a different spot on the treadmill. Nope. Still sucky. An earbud fell out of my ear. I fixed it. I moved the player again, barely concentrating on my jogging and more distracted by figuring out the perfect place for the dumb gadget. I’m sure I was drawing attention to myself. I wasn’t exactly being stealthy about my MP3 maneuvering. Then, another earbud fell out of my ear. “Stupid headphones,” I said out loud to nobody in particular. Although, I know the girl next to me heard and was really trying to ignore my shenanigans. I kept shuffling along in my jog while I readjusted the earbuds yet again and decided to hold the MP3 player in my hand.
Bad idea. It kept skipping through songs. Man – those buttons are sensitive! One little touch and the thing skipped them or started the song over. UGH! I picked yet another place on the treadmill to shove the MP3 player and tried to hold the cords in my hand so they weren’t annoying me. Ahhh. This seems to be working.
For about four minutes.
I must have forgotten I had the cords in my hand and I really started to push my run. KA-BLEWIE! The earbuds got yanked from my ears and the MP3 player went airborne off the ledge of the treadmill. I jerked my head as the cords, player and earbuds went flying off behind me, half on the floor and half mangled in the treadmill belt. I almost fell off the blasted thing. I yelped. Yes. I yelped. (Stupid MP3 player.) This time, there was no hiding. The girl next to me exclaimed, "Are you OKAY!?!?" Mind you, I was still trying to run, while half-turned around as I tried to wave it off and play it cool, “Oh, yeah. I’m not used to running with headphones. I’ll get ‘em later,” I replied, as I gripped the handrail and ungracefully twisted around. I don’t know why I didn’t just shut the dumb treadmill off, get off of it, pick them up and start over again. Nope, not me. I just kept running. And I stared straight ahead, at nothing, listening to nothing. “Those damn headphones will be the death of me,” I muttered.
I stayed on the treadmill on continued my run. I completely ignored my headphones, cord and MP3 player dragging on the back of my machine. Thank God no one was behind me. I love the back row.
The girl next to me was super nice. She didn’t laugh at me… at least not in front of my face. And when she got off her treadmill, she picked up my techno-gear and gently placed it in my cupholder for me. “Awwww!!! Thank YOUUUU!” I sweetly exclaimed. (Hoping to cover my embarrassment.) “No problem,” she said, and walked off.
I hope I never see her again.
I learned something that day though. A person cannot die of embarrassment. And, you can push through and do some pretty amazing things even when nothing seems to be going your way. Once I lost the headphones, I had a great follow-up run to my recent race. I ran four strong miles and even hit a nine-and-a-half minute pace on my last half-mile. It’s like Murphy’s Law…when something can go wrong, it will go wrong. Deal with it. Stop complaining about it. Just keep on running on that treadmill.
I don’t think I’ll run with headphones again though. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, those Skulllcandy headphones took quite a beating and still work like new.
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