(March 2, 2005) — “I am all alone! Last night, my family left me out on the street in a cardboard box with a rusted Campbell’s soup tin can for begging, and told me never to return, for I was a disgrace. What am I to do? Nobody loves me, and I am sure to die without my proper medication that my family fails to provide me with now that I am an outcast. What am I to do?!” I told my friend, while tears ran in great torrents down my cheeks and I gazed at him with puppy eyes. But my friend’s eyes were listing aimlessly away from mine, and it seemed his ears had a white plastic fungus growing from them. Suddenly, my friend twitched and looked at me blankly. Then he removed the strange fungus that seemed to be saying something, and said, “What’s wrong?” Before the birth of iPODs, humans had giant contraptions dubbed with the name Compact Disc player. It was a very delicate item and a nuisance to walk around with on outings, and many people did not have the urge or strength to stride around for a full 24 hours with this CD player blasting away while, at the same time, trying to socialize with friends. Now, humanity has advanced for the worse! Now one may take one hundred CD players and combine them into a small, easily transportable iPOD. The word iPOD can also be interpreted as the jukebox of Satan. And now hidden under the hoods of many, or openly displayed, the disease spreads. White lines are sprouting from youngsters’ ears all about the country. A new category for the physically handicapped has been made; ADD has a new brother and his name is iPODS (I Possibly Overheard Dose Sounds). Please explain to me what is the point of going out with your friends to socialize if you constantly have to remove a headphone from you ear and go, “What?” One might as well just go out with a Q-tip in each ear and try to have a decent conversation with someone. I think I am going to be filing a letter of complaint to the Apple company for them to put a warning as the Surgeon General does on cigarette packs, advising that an iPOD should be used at home or in “alone” time. Many of you who already possess that soul sucking (also, money embezzling) machine, are probably assuming that I am complaining because I do not already own on, but c’mon, how would you feel if I was singing “Barbie Girl” while you were requesting a favor or a friendly ear? Death to the iPODs, I say.