By Jennifer Savage
Do you remember when you were in middle school and you really wanted to go to the football game to see that boy but when you got there you ignored him all night until ten minutes before your mom was to pick you up? Then you stood there in your Keds, under the bleachers talking to him awkwardly until your mom finally beeped her horn for you to hurry your sweet seventh-grade ass to the car.
Well twenty some odd years removed from middle school, I employed the same tactic yesterday in Costco. The object of my affection: an iPod.
I drove to Costco trying to convince myself we needed a few things. We need sausages, I thought, cheese, tortillas and maybe while I’m there I might swing by and take a look at their ipod selection. Maybe.
I breezed into the store and right past the ipod kiosk as though I had no idea it was there. I loaded my arms with the sausages, cheese and tortillas we clearly couldn’t live without then right before I was about to get it line I sauntered over to the iPods. I grabbed the cardboard cutout of the one I wanted and headed to the cashier as casually as I might have picked u a loaf of bread. Right, I need this too.
I put my necessities in front of the cashier. She rang them up quickly and then shouted out to someone, somewhere, “Pick up! 32 gig touch!”
It was the equalivilent of your best friend Cathy yelling, “I know you love Jason!” across your crowd of friends gathered under the bleachers as you are walking away from the 13-year old love of your life. It was that embarrassing.
Not only did that cashier out me on my dorky technology purchase, she also announced to the entire store that I was spending a ridiculous amount of money on a grown-up toy.
I grabbed my iPod, sausages, cheese, tortillas and got the heck out of there.
Let me say that this iPod, or the iTouch, uNOtouch, as I’m calling it in my household, is my Christmas present…from 2009. Our finances have been a little tight these last few months – tight like can-we-afford-to-go-to-the-potluck tight, grad-school tight, what was it Dan Rather said during election night 2000 “…tight like a too-small bathing suit on a too-long ride home from the beach.” Yeah, that tight. So Seth and I forwent Christmas presents in exchange for, well, groceries.
Somehow we squeaked out a few hundred bucks for Seth to go ice climbing in February and we agreed that, at some point, I would buy an iPod.
Big purchases like this one are so rare that I tend to stalk whatever it is that I’m thinking of buying. I shop around, I think about my options until I know way too much about the product and it is almost painful to purchase it because I have to let go of the process and commit. It was hard in seventh grade and it still is.
No more stalking, no more window shopping. No more thinking about what it might be like to listen to Neko Case radio on my Pandora app or drive through an exquisite Montana day listening to James McMurtry then Dolly Parton then The New Pornographers.
It’s I like you, you like me. It’s holding hands at the football game. Or in the case of my new iPod it’s come home, pop open the case and plug me back into the world.
It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that I haven’t listened to music since Eliza was born. Before having children we were those people who probably needed to live in the country with no neighbors because we always seemed to have our windows open with loud, twangy music spilling out of them. We traveled to see the people we loved play music and spent time researching new bands, singer songwriters.
I don’t think we meant to stop doing those things but somehow, one day, we looked up and realized we didn’t know where we’d last seen the old iPod we’d shared.
I never hear “Whiskey River,” by Willie Nelson without thinking of my dad and summer nights in our backyard growing up. Seems the throwing open of windows and twangy musical tastes must be genetic. When I think of the house we lived in, I think of George Jones, the Eagles, Waylon Jennings. I think the loss of music in my adult home was one of those casualties of parenthood that went largely unnoticed because we were so busy trying to keep it all between the lines. But Eliza will turn four this summer, Lucille 2. I’m feeling as though I can not only look up but forward. I think about what musical backdrop they will remember.
So yesterday, with a healthy dose of tech-love I asked the boy to the dance, I bought myself an iPod. With the weather warming, I imagine we’ll soon be those people on the Northside, the ones who live in the little green house with a front porch and red flowers out front. The ones who keep their windows open with the faint sound of twang coming from inside.
Jennifer Savage is a writer and mama of Eliza and Lucille. Lately, she’s learning to be a city girl. She writes from her home in Missoula, Montana. She is also one of Mamalode’s favorite writers and you can fall in love with her too at Savagemama.com Read more of Jennifer’s mamalode articles here
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This was a pleasure to read…..loved it!!! Love the “itouch” “uNOtouch!”
….and I love that you will have twang coming out your windows!!
Congratulations on a well-deserved purchase!
I totally relate to this entire piece! From the ebb and flow of the “budget” to the realization of involuntarily foregone grown up simple pleasures like music! Well done!
I giggled at this one the whole time. Sweet music to you!
I remember when Caroline had her kids and I didn’t have one, wasn’t pregnant, didn’t know if I ever would be and I mentioned like the Black Eyed Peas or something…not them, but that big. And she hadn’t heard of them. I must have looked shocked because she said, ‘you know, I now get why parents become such dorks. I haven’t listened to music in the car in three years. But I know every kid’s song on the market.’
Now I get that. I am so with you. It’s not the same as making a mix tape but we could share good music finds via e mail. heh. x
Thanks for the shout out. I’m so excited for you that you got an Ipod. Music is like food and water to me. I can’t live without it and it is one of the great joys in my life. Here’s hoping your new boy – I mean, toy – brings you the joy of rediscovering your favorite music and all the memories attached to it.
So nice to be reminded that we are in the same boat. Isn’t it funny how excited we get about those “big” purchases that other people make without thinking…
i know, i know. thanks for writing.
Yeah, we lost track of current music completely until our oldest turned about 9 and started discovering her own music. Alllllll my favorite bands are ones she or later, her brother, brought home.
HA!
She’s almost 21, I’ve no idea what she’s listening to other than Gaga, but I’ve got tickets to both the Decemberists and Bright Eyes, stuff she was listening to in 8th and 9th grade.
I’m trying really hard to not lose track again with Connor the grandboy, and his infernal Thomas’s Train Yard Adventures cd. Thankfully, plenty of current, wonderful, alternative artists are doing kid CDs.
And I totally get the thought of what his musical background, what he’ll remember all his life, will be. There was an informercial for some Time-Life country collection the other night. I swear… I’ve known those songs since I could breathe, and I hadn’t thought of a single one in years and years and years, and I doubt my kids know even one, though they could sing Grateful Dead in their sleep. And have. I’ve heard it. Weird dreams those must be.
sigh
iTunes, here I come.
And my husband stalks bikes. He thrives on the process too. The purchase brings that to an end, and he always seems a little lost for a while after making an actual purchase.
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