Last year, tired of listening only to my thoughts while I ran, I went out and dropped $85 on a Memorex-brand MP3 player. As far as I remember, this device has not once worked correctly, not even on the first day I had it, though perhaps my expectations were too high for a device that cost $85. Perhaps for that price I should be grateful that it is not actively melting its battery or seeping poison gas.   

But while it has so far been remarkably non-lethal, my $85 MP3 player has often failed in a major category of its functioning, which is to produce sound. It is forever mysteriously purging itself all of the hundreds of song files that I take the time to download onto it, meaning that I will get out onto the jogging path eager to suffer to the sound of music, only to find that the hateful object is devoid of songs and I must suffer to the sound of my own crushingly dull thoughts.  

On the rare occasions that it still contains music, the MP3 player finds other ways to thwart me, namely through a series of games it plays with its “display screen.” Purportedly, this part of the MP3 player is where the person using it can refer to find out what song is playing, how many minutes are left, what the volume is at, etc. On my MP3 player, this is where you can look to see a line of gibberish scrolling from right to left. Whether it’s drunk or simply trying to contact folks on Tramalfadore I’ll never know. On some days it displays its screen just fine except that it’s backwards, as thought the MP3 player is feeling introverted or pensive and is playing the song titles to itself. While I can occasionally puzzle out what sdnomaiD htiw ykS eht ni ycuL means, I sometimes have to take a mirror to it.* Perhaps this is what the vain little machine wants.  

Lately it’s taken to refusing to allow me to download any more music on it. I hook it up to the computer and the computer tells me, “Device not found. Press F5 to refresh.” I test the connection, check the display screen on the MP3 player where, in a perverse about-face, it is displaying exactly what it should say: “Transfer Mode.” I press F5, and the computer tells me, “Device not found. Press F5 to refresh.” No matter how many times I repeat this process, the results don’t change. Clearly, somebody is lying. Although my computer has problems of its own, I suspect the MP3 player, as it is the craftier of the two and the most likely to be giving me a message that has nothing to do with reality.

*Holding a mirror to the computer screen will not work. Unlike the MP3 player, the computer will not permit me to reverse the directions of the letters themselves. Also unlike the MP3 player, it never randomly displays the message “Paul is dead,” though it does go back through blog entries I’ve written and remove all of the thousands of comments my fans leave.