My iPodless Life

As I stand on the morning train onward to work in the laboratory, before I put on my mad scientist visage (scientists are so serious sometimes...LOL...people are amazed, or think I'm up to something, when I walk around with my usual smile). I rest my weight against the car door, which is unauthorized, and yet is supplemental to maintaining your balance on the bumpy ride. My bag is placed in between my legs on the floor of the train, where designated personnel has previously cleaned off last nights vomit of a drunk New Yorker who was recently initiated into the unemployment club. I unzip the back hatch and pull out my new Walter Mosley novel. The train begins to fill with more and more people on a mission to make it to work on time and not have their supervisor or boss scold them for yet another late entry; little do they know that MTA has a $1.2 billion deficit, and they're continuously backed up due to passengers that are either arrested by the police, fall ill and pass out, or the executive decision of MTA to throw a train out of service making your fashionable entrance that less trendy...but wait don't they take the same train? Nope.

Observatory is my middle name! So from time-to-time I let my chin, forehead and eyes drift upwards from my book and on to New York's everyday train passenger. I could estimate that around 65-75% of the people on each train has head phones in their ears, which is most likely connected to an iPod, iPhone, or an iTouch. Some are courteous and keep the volume at a comfortable level where their ear drums aren't being mugged by the violent bass coming from their media player. Then there are others that you don't even have to be a mind reader to know what they are listening to, because it's as if there is a streaming sign on their forehead that continuously updates you of the song being played, when it's really exploding from the left and right ear pieces screaming at you to just ignore it, but how can you? And just your luck to have some overly obese Caucasian man hugging your back like a chimpanzee with his consistent, uncontrolled breathe. It's not his fault, or maybe it is (*shrugs shoulders in indifference*). I can't forget about the less than 1% that might be listening to audio books, but let's be real...if you're truly reading a book (well to truly be able to tell visually) you either have a physical book in hand--as i do--or you have those things...what are they called? Ahhh, that's right: Kindle(s). I've seen a number of people with those or some other high end electronic book reader.

In either case, besides the less than 1%, people are going deaf and zoning out on their train ride from A to B. I choose to live an iPodless life in order to preserve my brain and sanity; in order to hear myself think and not have Souljah Boy or T-Pain leading the charge as my thoughts combat problems with a proposed solution; in order to live my life like Rhianna and T.I. said; in order to REALLY enjoy the fact that God has granted me the ability to hear at all; in order to FOCUS (since I do zone out myself sometimes, since people these days are becoming more accustomed to a short attention span or recently acquired A.D.D.); in order to be ready for the unexpected!

Then everyone's attention is averted to the disheveled man who enters the train with a newspaper in one hand and a plate of sun-dried brownies that smell oh-so-good; but dried as bottom soles of a desert wanderer's feet. He commands his own space in a nerd-esque voice tone and sits next to a woman with child, who after she gets a whiff of his body odor slides to her right to find some fresher breathing room. If you're paying attention to the facial expressions as I am you will crack a smile, because some are disgusted, others are confused wondering if he has mental issues, and a few don't pay him any mind in the normal New York fashion.

As I continue to walk along my iPodless life I wonder what it will feel like being one of the only people without a cochlear implant? Because if this continues people are really going to go deaf. I don't want to be one among that large number. I want to hear for as long as God allows me to. How about you? LOL