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Journal Entry September 6, 2003 I’m getting old. You know when you’re getting old when you can no longer understand electronic devices. You see, my CD player died after it’s short three-year span (which, I understand now, is quite old for a CD player), so I piled into the car and headed off to Wal-Mart to buy a new one, thinking this would be a simple task. Right. I walked to the electronics department only to be faced with an entire row filled with nothing but CD players. They have your basic CD player, jogging CD players, CD players with radio, CD players with mp3 capabilities, CD players with mp3 and radio capabilities, CD players with mp3, radio, and weather alerts technology, CD players with Altrac, or something, technology, CD players with SmartTrax technology, CD players with midgets that jump out with little hammers to make small repairs on your house. An hour later, I walk out of Wal-Mart, the proud owner of a RCA CD/mp3 player with SmartTrax technology. But that was only half the fun. The other half was getting the dumb thing to work. After using a small jackhammer, I finally got the package open to be greeted with the message, to use your free headphones, please read the attached instructions. I’m thinking, what, do you think I am, an idiot? Surely, I can figure out how to use a simple pair of headphones. That was, until I took the things out. They looked like something the aliens from the planet Zenon would use on their spaceships to communicate back to their leader. Needless to say, I had to read the instructions. Apparently, they’re supposed to wrap easily around your ear and then magically stay there. Yea right. They were obviously designed by men who did not have a full head of long, curly hair. After ten frustrating minutes, I threw the things across the room and went back to my ear duds, which are easy to use. Take the dud, stick in ear. Easy. Why make things harder than they need to be? So, then, I made my first CD of mp3s. Wonderful! 167 of my favorite songs on one CD. Wonderful, that is, until I attempted to scroll through the CD. You see, I’d had a CD/mp3 player for a very short time until I dropped the thing in the toilet (that’s another story) so I had a little heads up on this problem. This time, instead of piling all 167 songs randomly on the CD, I thought I’d be smart and divide the majority of the CD into little folders, separated by artists. Well, that was better, but it didn’t take long before I ran into another problem. I used to download entire CDs at a time so I could have anywhere from ten to forty songs by each artist. And, to make matters worse, the CD burning software puts the songs in whatever order it decides its in the mood to do so I have no idea where each song is. Then, to make matters even worse, the little screen on the CD players is very very small, so when I scroll through the songs, say for Linkin Park, this is what I see: Linkin Park – 1 Linkin Park – S Linkin Park – I Can you see how this could be a problem? Not to mention that it takes about a minute for each song to finally start. So, I’m not too impressed at the moment. Hopefully, it’s one of those things you just have to get used to, and then you’ll lie awake at night wondering how in the world you were able to breathe without it. I hope. One small step for woman, one giant leap for
womankind I did it! I did it! Today, I plunged the toilet! I was so proud of myself that I started screaming and jumping around, waving my hands in the air as though I had just won an Olympic gold metal. I have to admit, however, that I did start to lose faith in myself and my plunging abilities when, after about fifteen minutes of jabbing an upside down rubber bowl on a stick up and down and getting toilet water splattered on my hands and face, the toilet remained filled with dirty water that only gurgled as though it had just eaten some bad cabbage. I even started to think that maybe this marriage thing was not such a bad idea after all since, at least then, I would have a man readily at my disposal to take care of such emergency. But then it happened, a miracle sent from above, the sound of a chorus from heaven as the clog broke free and the water rushed happily back to its home in the sewer. There is hope for us after all. I am woman, hear me plunge! © EXCEL
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