A couple weeks ago, the iPod that my girlfriend and I shared was brutally murdered by a careless Nalgene bottle, with the help of gravity and the enclosed space that is my girlfriend’s purse. I was not there when the act occurred, but the news hit me rather hard. It was a frantic conversation: I demanded to have the who, the why, the what, the when, the where … thinking back, I could have written a story about the event that any high school English teacher would have found exceptional. However, I was much too distraught.

For those who know me, it’s not too surprising that I would be a bit depressed about the iPod’s demise. I’ve been carrying one since ’02 (back when the scroll wheel actually spun), and through the years I have resuscitated an iPod four different times. When I heard the news, I wanted to pry open its glossy case and let it dry out as fast as possible. However, the damage had already been done. Shortly after the iPod was soaked, my girlfriend made the mistake of attempting to turn it on. Water and electricity do not play nicely. So when the iPod was brought to me, it was no surprise that it was fried.

Since that day I have been searching frantically for a way to replace the iPod. I’ve been checking and rechecking my bank statements, hoping that the balance will grow, or that I will be invited to draw from the community chest pile and find that there was a bank error in my favor, that I should collect $200. I have been forced to come to grips with the idea of life without music being pumped into my brain whenever I want it.

It’s strange really, considering the fact that I went roughly 15 years of my life without an iPod, but now the thought seems … bleak. Without the iPod, how am I going to walk around in public? How am I going to ride any system of mass transit? How am I going to get through watching others workout? How am I going to live?

I’ve thought about picking up a used iPod or a CD player or even, dare I say it, a Zune. But how do I know if the used iPod is going to hold up? What would people think of me walking around with a giant CD player? Could I ever actually commit the technical and social suicide that is the Zune?

So here I am, left without a way to avoid the amazingly bleak reality of not having an iPod. I don’t know what I’ll do. The iPod has, for myself and others, become a comfort item. As kids we have “blankies,” as we get older we switch to action figures and dolls, and sometime after we decide that the other sex does not in fact have cooties, we finally come around to the iPod.

iPods are admittedly too expensive, too easy to break and far too easy to drop. In almost every way, a book is a much better choice of an entertainment device. However, a book doesn’t put delicious sounds in my ears, and being seen with one in public these days is a little … well, let’s just say we don’t seem to like books as a society that much anymore.

The iPod is so firmly ingrained in society that I’m beginning to think that our generation was the last generation ever to experience the world without a soundtrack. Through all of my agony, I can’t help but wonder what will happen to the kid who has never known the world without iPods when his or her iPod breaks.