The Pathbeater

My iPod is gone.  I don’t know if it was stolen, or if I lost it, but I brought it to work one day and it disappeared.  I’ve searched my office and my house and it is nowhere to be found.  No one has turned it into the Lost and Found at work.  So it’s gone. 

I should actually say that it is “our” iPod, since all of my wife’s Christmas music and dirges by The Cure and Morrissey were on it (She probably would have some interesting opinions about my music collection - which includes, among other things, rap, country, and heavy metal - but this isn’t her column).  

If I had to guess, I would lean toward “stolen” as opposed to “lost and sitting somewhere out of sight”.  The reason for this is that I can’t think of anyplace lost and out of sight that I haven’t checked.  And, if I dropped it, someone could have turned it in to the Lost and Found (“Hey look, an expensive piece of equipment that I could just keep for free…where is the nearest Lost and Found?”).  I suppose I could put up posters, like people do when their cats have been eaten by coyotes but they just don’t want to admit it to themselves, or to their children: 

LOST 

White 30GB iPod 

I didn’t write down the serial number

but you should still give it back. 

If you don’t, karma will get you. 

I suppose that if I really wanted to discourage someone from keeping it, I would lie and say something like “iPod has been contaminated with a rare and incredibly contagious skin disease.  Call owner for antidote.”  That might work a little better than the empty karma threat, but I’m not sure that it is strictly legal. 

The thought that my iPod was stolen really grates on me.  In the words of Vincent Vega (when someone keyed his car):  “Boy, I wish I could’ve caught him doing it.  I’d have given anything to catch that [bad word] doing it.  It’d been worth him doing it just so I could’ve caught him doing it.” 

But, no matter whether someone stole it, or it’s sitting in some dark corner waiting for me to find it, or if I accidentally dropped it into the Wachusett Reservoir; it’s gone.  There is no question that I am going to have it replaced, so now the big decision is:  do we go to his and her iPods? 

The Pro:  It would probably be good for our marriage.  For some unknown reason, my wife gets frustrated just by the fact that songs by 50 Cent, Charlie Parker, and Tool are even ON an iPod along with her music.  Not only can she not simply put the entire iPod on shuffle for fear that she might hear a Frank Zappa or Lynyrd Skynyrd song, but she doesn’t even like to have to click past all of my music to get to whatever Sarah McLachlan song she feels like listening to at the moment.  To be fair, when there are 25 different artist listings for 50 Cent (50 Cent with Eminem, 50 Cent with Little Feat, 50 Cent with Pete Fountain, etc.) it can be a bit much. 

In the same vein, I would like to be able to put the iPod on shuffle without hearing 7 different versions of Jingle Bells. 

Plus, it would be nice for me to be able to listen to my music without kidnapping all of our music for the entire day.  So, it would seem that his and her iPods are the way to go.  Except: 

The Con:  iPods aren’t cheap.  Not only do they cost more than the muffler on my car, they have all sorts of little gadget accessories that go along with them.  These accessories honestly cost more than a small, non-HD, color TV.  

For example, I had a little gadget for my old iPod that allowed me to transmit it to my car radio, but I have discovered that the “old” gadget doesn’t fit the new iPods (of course).  So, that’s about 50 bucks.  Unless I want to charge it AND listen to the radio at the same time; then there is a gadget for that that runs somewhere between 85-100 bucks.  Yes, it is ridiculous, but if we get his and her iPods, we multiply everything by 2.  In the end, we’ll probably need a home equity loan just to have a portable music collection; and that doesn’t include the cost of the music itself! 

So, it is the age old story:  Money or marital bliss? 

It would be much easier if I could just find that old iPod.  Maybe I’ll go look for it again; I just remembered that I forgot to look in the basement under the washing machine…

It’s almost July, and my pool is green. I should be more specific: the water in my pool is green. Not light green. Not cute green; deep, mossy green. For anyone who does not own a pool, I can tell you that green is not the optimal color for pool water. To quote my wife, it’s “gross”. No one wants to swim in a green pool, with the exception of my dog (a very big fan of “gross”).

I would blame the constant rain for the green water, but after a significant amount of study, I have found that rain cannot be the culprit. First of all, rain is not green. Second, the same rain fell into my neighbor’s pool and it’s as clear as crystal. There must be another guilty party, because we have never had this problem before.

It is probably the new pool cover’s fault. We decided to buy a new cover because our old cover, really just a blue tarp, used to gather leaves and water and turn itself into a pond, on top of the pool, every spring. When removing the blue tarp, leaves and other good stuff (worms, dead rodents) would always seem to find their way into the pool, but at least the water would be clear.

The new cover, which was removed weeks ago, is very nice. The website for the cover claims that it is so strong; an elephant could safely stand on it without falling into the pool. That will come in handy if any elephants happen to wander into my back yard. I suppose it’s possible that the pool is green because some neighborhood elephant, having just enjoyed a large serving of asparagus, wandered onto the cover and used my pool as a rest stop; but that’s not the most likely scenario.

The most likely scenario is that the new cover, unlike the old blue tarp, allowed all of the winter sunlight into the pool. That sunlight, made up of a bunch of friendly individuals named Photons, got into the pool and started partying. The Photons, as photons will, invited along the Green Algae cousins to listen to some funky club music, called “photosynthesis”. The problem is that so many of the Green Algae cousins showed up that the pool turned green.

So, whatever the reason, it’s almost July and I have a green pool; counter-measures must be taken. The first step, my favorite solution to any pool issue, is called Shock and Awe. Shock is powerful concentrated chlorine, which should kill anything, and I have bottles and bottles of it. I wait until it gets dark (Shock is a bit nasty and doesn’t get along with the Photons) and pour 4 gallons into the pool. I go to bed and wait for the filter and chlorine to do their work.

The next morning, the water is still green. Aw.

I get more serious. A sample of the pool water is brought to the pool store. The pool store recommends algaecide (sorry Green Algae cousins). All viewable algae are brushed from the sides of the pool, and a healthy amount of algaecide is added to the water. I wait overnight for the algaecide to do its work and in the morning I see:

Beautiful, rippling waves of green.

At this point, I snap. This can’t be that difficult. I figure that Shock can solve everything, so I put a bunch of it into the pool: Shock, shock, shock, shock, shock. Gallons and gallons of the stuff; everything must go.

Everything, that is, except for the algae. The water is even greener than it was before, if that’s even possible. I can’t even see the bottom of the pool. I will probably have wave the white flag and call in a professional.

But, I’ve been thinking that maybe what my yard really needs is a nice basketball court. I could paint the lines and put up lights and I’d probably even paint it green. If anyone knows where I could get a good deal on a very large amount of cement, enough to support an elephant, please let me know.