Stupid Thing of the Week

So, several months ago, my niece had finally saved up enough money to buy an mp3 player. Imagine being nine years old and having a part time job. Anyway, she wanted one with a screen to watch movies on (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA was just made for the two inch format)

So, I took her to the store and let her pick one out. I think I got a little grief from her mother for letting her buy a somewhat-expensive player, but I figured she wanted what she wanted, and since she'd worked for it, why not?

Well, an mp3 player with nothing on it is kind of like [*insert small genitals joke here*], so I asked her to make a list of stuff she wanted me to put on it. I loaded it up with Kelly Clarkson songs, "Buffy" episodes, Disney soundtracks, Type O Negative tunes, that sort of stuff, and put it out where she could get it if her mother stopped by when I wasn't around. And then I forgot about it, as I pretty much only see my niece every other weekend or so.

A while later, I did see her and she asked me where her player was, and I told her as far as I remembered, she had taken it. She said she hadn't, so I assumed her mother had grabbed it. I asked her mom, and she said she had put it on my bed to put songs on, and hadn't seen it since.

I shrugged and assumed it would turn up.

But it didn't.

A month passed. Then another month. I'd ask my niece whenever I'd see her if she'd found it, and she'd ask me if I had come across it. The player was gone.

My sister insisted she left it in my room, so I went through my room the other day, looking behind and under the bed, looking through my bookshelves and comic stacks and porn boxes and reams of Jonas Brothers publications. I looked in my drawers, my closet, laundry pile, and all around the infectious waste that garnishes my computer desk. No player.If you see an mp3 player in here, please let me know.

There's not really any ironic twist coming, by the way, if years of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," M. Night Shylaman movies, or tabloid journalism has got you expecting it. My niece was over one Saturday, here to use the computer and consume junk food, and I told her I had an extra mp3 player I bought in 2008 because I thought mine was broken* and I thought I ought to give it to her since she'd lost/I'd lost hers. She seemed to think that was fine, but I never got around to finding it for her.

What did happen was that my mother bought a mirror at IKEA for my sister, and had me put it in my sister's car. I popped her trunk, made room for the mirror, and was surprised to see the mp3 player, still in its package, buried under the junk back there.** Instead of making a big deal, as I wanted to do, I said nothing and closed the trunk, going back inside to not-write.

I told my mom that the player had been in my sister's car all this time, despite her insistence that I had lost it. She was just grateful it had turned up. What I decided to do was to write my niece a note that said, "Your mp3 player is in your mom's trunk" on it, and slip it to her as she left Sunday afternoon. I told her I'd give her a note that would make her happy if she would record some lines for a Dunesteef episode that day, and she had to remind me otherwise I'd forget about the note.

To not forget, I put it in her jacket pocket before she left. She and her mom left on schedule, and my niece called me from the road to remind me I hadn't given her the note. I told her where to find it, and left her to make her own conclusions. Well, apparently she read the note, insisted her mother pull the car over so she could get the player out of the trunk, and then was told that the player I'd seen was not the one that had been lost. Tired of seeing her daughter upset about the lost mp3 player, my sister had gone out and bought a new one (the exact same make and model?) to surprise her with on some future occasion.

Oh.
I wish I had some kind of amusing coda for the story, but the real mp3 player (if you trust that my sister was telling the truth) remains lost, and my niece remains music-less for the time being. So, this has been a lot of blogging for nothing, folks. And that sums up my life pretty well.

Rish "Absolutely No Punchline" Outfield

*It froze one time and wouldn't unfreeze. Once the battery finally ran out, it worked fine again.

**Other stuff was also in the trunk. Disturbing stuff. Like the Lindburgh Baby.