Okay, I ran today. It was an
experience. I’m the only person you know who can turn a simple thirty minute jog into a ninety minute technological nightmare. Wanna shake my
hand?
Anyway, let’s get to the good news
first. I ran.
Now, on to the bad news . . .
Okay, there was more good news. I
successfully carried my Christmas snacks, all of ‘em, around my
three-mile course, without dying of a heart attack. That’s really
good news. On the other hand, I was sufficiently apoplectic over my
technology problems that it was far more likely a stroke would take
me than an exercise-induced heart-attack. So I suppose I can add that
to the good-news side of the ledger: I died neither of stroke nor
heart attack, and at the moment of this writing remain in the land of
the living.
I did, however, lose my sanctification.
If anyone sees it laying beside the road, would you please catch it
and drop it by the house?
That was the beginning of the bad news.
Pray, continue.
Today I got to use my new Bluetooth
headphones for the first time. Maybe the last time. I am seriously considering uninstalling them
and reinstalling the tin cans and string that preceded them. Using these headphones requires an intelligence quotient I haven’t
seen since college.
The right earpiece comes with five
controls allowing me to control my music and to use the
telephone—which I am bound and determined to never do. In my opinion, telephones
are designed to be seen and not heard, but that’s another story:
back to the music.
No one told me two essential pieces of
information: first, it requires the fingers of a concert pianist to
hit “volume up” rather than “dial the telephone,” especially
when you are simultaneously lugging your Christmas cookies around the
block.
My inability to hit the proper button
perturbed me significantly until I landed upon yet another
insight—the second piece of information about which I was not
informed: these headphones randomly reassign the buttons to different
functions as you run. Ha! Two minutes ago that WAS the volume-up
button. Now it’s the “skip this song” button!
This was not a pleasant discovery.
You see, part of the fun of running—wait, no, let me phrase that
more accurately—part of that which makes running slightly more
tolerable than a root canal is listening to music as I haul my
cookies over the landscape. And because I am mostly deaf, I need a
slightly elevated volume when I run. You know, sort of like the
teenager who pulls up next to you at the light, music blaring so
loud the vibrations readjust your mirrors? Yeah, that’s me when I’m
running.
So the first mile I’m running with
my fingers in my ear, punching buttons, frantically trying to get my
music to a rock-concert decibel level where I can hear it. No dice.
Very faint, barely audible. I found the “skip this song” button,
the “dial this phone” button, the “volume down” button, but
no “volume up” button.
Due solely to the fact that it is very
wearisome (not to speak of embarrassing) to run with your finger in
your ear, I gave up and slogged the next mile with nothing more than
the faintest whisper of music.
Somewhere in mile two I decided to try
again. Wouldn’t you know it, the button randomizer had assigned the
volume-up function to the “volume up” button. Oh, thank you,
thank you! I adjusted the volume to where it was setting off car
alarms as I ran past, and I was happy as a clam.
Until mile three. When [running
paused] Strava, my running program on my smartphone [running
resumed] decided to flake out. Every ten [running paused]
seconds it [running resumed] was telling me that the [running
paused] pause function had [running resumed] kicked in.
Honestly, I was not going [running paused] that slow. [running
resumed]! The only advantage
[running paused] was
that [running resumed]
it made your favorite songs [running paused] last
longer be-[running resumed]cause
it paused the song with each announcement.
It did
this little pause/resume
thing for the rest of my run. Very tiresome. To add insult to injury,
I couldn’t get Strava to exit when I finished my run. Finally just turned off the stupid
phone. Rock concert was over, anyway.
Next
time I run, I’m leaving the headphones and telephone home. Wish I
could leave the cookies home, too.
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