Thursday, May 15, 2008

From the Office of Mis-directed Email

Yesterday I got this email which wasn’t supposed to come to me, she just can’t type very well:

On May 14, 2008, at 6:12 PM, pants wrote:

Just a reminder to look for your FM radio iPod adapter thingy… :-)

Later gator,

Mads

My reply is as follows:

Mads—

I looked and looked and looked EVERYWHERE for my FM radio iPod adapter thingy and I’m sorry; I can’t find it.

Of course, this saddens me greatly and for the following reasons:

A) I don’t have an FM radio iPod adapter thingy.

Having torn the house up looking for the misbegotten device I can only come to the conclusion that I don’t own one. In retrospect it would have been much easier simply to head over to a local consumer electronics store and purchase an FM radio iPod Adapter thingy. Instead I emptied every drawer, rummaged through closets and in a move I’ve come to regret mightily, ripped out the drywall in the living room to try and find something I don’t even own. The repairs to our rumpus room walls alone will be far, far, far more than the cost of an FM radio iPod Adapter thingy. Those are only like $40 or so. I’m still getting estimates on the wall repairs.

Also, the cavity search of members of my family and immediate neighbors was a very bad idea.

B) An FM radio iPod adapter thingy would really help me and my self image.

I currently use a super cheap cassette adapter in my car, so I can listen to my iPod while I drive aimlessly and lethargically around the city on my meaningless errands and to and from my pointless and soul sucking job. It cost me around $6 at the grocery store and though it is serviceable, it is not sexy. It does nothing for either my self-image or my self-esteem.

And you know so well how desperately I need to be sexied-up.

I went online and looked at a few of them.

Holy guacamole on a toasted onion bagel, they are GORGEOUS!

How very cool they appear and how nicely they would gleam if mounted on my dashboard. My pathetic cassette adapter trails an unseemly wire out of my car stereo and I have to stare at that disgusting wire all the time, even when it’s not hooked to my iPod. Though the sound quality is average at best, I had previously thought that given my poor taste in music (my predilection for bubble gum pop from boy bands of the early 90s rears its ugly head, yet again), sub-standard to middling sound reproduction was the best I should hope for. As I read the specification for various FM radio iPod adapter thingies, my enjoyment of my precious Backstreet Boys bootleg recordings could be increased substantially through the use of one of these wondrous doo-dads.

And obviously, that is not all.

How much better my life would be with the soothing warmth of a tiny LCD screen or the torch-y sultriness of an FM adapter iPod thingy, like I’ve seen online and in catalogs? My heavenly stars on a beach ball, can’t you just see how much more attractive my visage would be if it were bathed in the greenish glow of LED lights? Maybe if I mock something up in Photoshop?

Obviously, I’m missing out on a lot.

C) “Later gator,”

Are you just trying to be mean here?

You know how deathly afraid I am of alligators, crocodiles and other reptiles ever since that unfortunate trip to the Everglades in 1982 when I could feel the baby alligators staring me down and inspecting my shoes and then, though you have always ridiculed me for this, I swear up and down on a stack of stolen Gideon Bibles that those little reptilian slot eyed demons were accusing me of “wearing their mommy.”

Is this some kind of twisted joke on your part, trying to send me into a panicked frenzy, when you know I am out of Atavan until Dr. Chandrasekhar comes back from Dehli in June?

If so, then “Job Well Done,” Mads. Really, you have outdone yourself this time.

This even surpasses the time you snuck up behind me and draped tinsel over my head which caused me such consternation and shock that I gasped and subsequently swallowed an entire strand of garland and I pooped silver filaments for a month afterward.

Though it is difficult to discern tone and meaning from mere words in an email, I can’t help but surmise that you truly don’t want to be my friend any more.

I can sense from your hateful closing that my presence in your life is no longer necessary.

I will also stop going to the bi-weekly Cosplay meetings, which is just as well, since I can tell that my outfits (the “Barbarian in Chains and a Loincloth” ensemble in particular) were making you uncomfortable.

Best to you,
—jon

1. For what it’s worth, we both an FM Radio [generic] Adapter Thingy and a cheapo tape adapter thingy, and we actually end up using the cheapo tape adapter thingy most of the time on account of how difficult it is to find an FM frequency that is sufficiently bereft of signal to enable the clear and straightforward usage of the [generic MP3 device].  This in spite of how cool we look bathed in the lambent light of the LCD.

   Posted by rkimedes  on  05/15/08  at  05:55 PM

2. You’re being featured on Five Star Friday:
   http://www.fivestarfriday.com/2008/05/five-star-friday-edition-6.html

   Posted by schmutzie  on  05/16/08  at  08:04 AM

3. I’m with “rk” on this.  You actually get better sound from those lame tape adaptors than the FM trasmitter.  If I had a tape deck in my car, I would totally use that instead of my FM thingie that I curse every time, I’m stopped near a traffic light, or pass a truck with a more powerful transmitter, or pass certain cell towers…

   Posted by workman  on  05/16/08  at  12:51 PM

4. I don’t have an ipod FM thingy either. Even if I DID have an ipod FM thingy, I still couldn’t use it because I only have a shuffle, at that doesn’t seem to attach to anything, dammit.

   Posted by Loralee  on  05/18/08  at  04:54 PM

5. Holy Moly
   That poor, poor woman.

   You’re the real deal Jon.
   I have no idea what the heck that means, but whatever it means, you are really it!

   Posted by OMSH  on  05/19/08  at  01:15 PM

6. It’s true, I’ve used an FM radio iPod adapter thingy and they do kind of suck in relation to a good ol’ (cheap) cassette adapter thingy.

   Posted by jon  on  05/19/08  at  01:41 PM

7. I hate onion bagels.

   Posted by Sterkworks  on  05/19/08  at  07:06 PM

8. I’ve heard cassette adapters are superior to FM adapter thingies. I wouldn’t know though, since I’m rocking it old school with a case full of CDs in my car. :-)

   Posted by Mads  on  05/19/08  at  10:22 PM

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Holy Crap! Look at all this STUFF down here. It's awesome!

 

Really, I'm glad you made it down here. Almost no one ever comes down here. I'm like in a freaking dungeon down here. I get lonely. But not you. YOU made it all the way to the end of the page. For this I think I've a little crush on you. I don't know, is "love" to strong a word to use in this situation? Well, if it's not "love," then it's very strong "like." I'm totally in like with you for coming down here. You are awesome. Please love me back! I know, I know, I shouldn't be all needy, it's not attractive at all, but you don't know how it is to be stuck down here. Who scrolls all the way to the end of a page anymore these days? Anyway, thanks for shedding some light down here in the depths. I appreciate it. Shoot me an email and I'll send you a dollar, OK?

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