Stomper
I dropped my iPod.
I say it like I’m confessing because I still can’t believe I did it. This morning it just slipped out of my fingers as I was putting it into its padded little protective case, and it whacked into the side of the table as it fell helplessly to the floor. Now there’s a very noticible dent in its side, though thankfully everything else seems to be in working order. I wince inside just thinking about it. I’m always so careful, borderline neurotic, about stuff like this.
And I think I know why.
When I was a kid I my mom bought me a Stomper — specificially an 4×4 Stomper. I ended up being so excited to play with it that I took it to school the next day to drive it through all the puddles on the playground. When the “end of recess” bell rang, I jumped up to run inside and dropped my Stomper on the ground.
It shattered against the blacktop, and I was devistated.
My mom in her infinite mother’s wisdom must have been able to tell how upset I was, because when I got home she took me to get a new Stomper right away.
I’ll be damned (damned!) if the very next day the exact same thing didn’t happen. Complete with puddles on the blacktop and another broken Stomper. There was no new Stomper this time. I remember not even being able to bring myself to consider asking for another replacement. It was out of the question, I was way to upset with myself.
Since then, every time I do something stupid like scratch my car, break a glass or drop my iPod, I think of those two little trucks that smashed on the blacktop twenty years ago — I could see them clearly this morning as I checked, checked and rechecked that the iPod still worked — and I suspect it won’t be the last time.
