What a wacky weekend.

I haven’t the time or energy to write of the wild turns of this past weekend but I will mention one event, which just happened and is fresh on my mind.

In the past few weeks I’ve meant to rave about my fairly new audio toy, the Apple iPod. For me, it’s technology at its best, even though some audiophiles say it doesn’t hold a candle to “real vinyl.” To have 162 albums (so far) at my disposal with the simple click of a button has helped calm my nerves on my many “too-slow” commutes around town. It’s helped me avoid endless commercials or repetitive talk shows or overplayed singles. Besides where else can you have instant access to 116 Weird Al Yankovic songs--that’s 7 hours and 10 minutes of pure aural pleasure?

But something happened this evening to shatter my hi-tech nirvana. The Warden and I were traveling home after our small group meeting and about 9:30 p.m. my little white marvel locked up. It wouldn’t play Andrae Crouch, U2, the Beatles, Bach, Rich Mullins, Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, B.B. King, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, or even Weird Al. Nobody! It locked up on a Larry Norman song. The eerie thing was that it locked up on his song “666.” Oooooooooo. Has someone been tampering with my iPod? I guess I’m open to any legitimate conspiracy theories.

Fortunately this is Christmas week and all the stores are open late. Our trip home leads us past a Best Buy, so at 9:45 I run into the store with 15 minutes to spare searching for answers. The guy who sells the iPods sends me to the Geek Squad where I receive wise counsel and reassurance that my new toy is only in need of resetting. However this can only be done by letting the battery run out. So I brought my pod home and watched as the brightly displayed screen drained the life out of the battery. Now with the battery dead, I plugged it back in and viola. My massive audio library is now saved and accessible. I can crawl into bed and rock myself to sleep to the sounds of “Slime Creatures From Outer Space,” “The Night Santa Went Crazy,” or “Harvey The Wonder Hamster.”

Thank you Apple. Thank you Geek Squad. And God bless America.