I admit I am not the most technologically inclined buffalo. In fact, I am the last bovine cousin I know to appreciate the joys of owning a small shiny device known as an "MP3 Player". So, as I am working on trying to become a more progressive mammal, I have decided to take the plunge into the World of the Future and buy myself one of those new fangled iPods.

First things first: These things are small. Too fucking small. Anything I can fit in my anal cavity is too small for my comfort. But nonetheless I get one of the "mini" mother fuckers, because if I ever find I have more than 4 gigabytes of broadway showtunes, that should be the signal that I should go somewhere private and kill myself. They can't seem to offer me something that isn't coloured like something you'd find in the purse of a 14-year old girl, so I opt for the "green" one. The sales girl smiles as I pay my $402.12 (Canadian) and leave the store with my pride injured but my sense of style largely intact.

I will say this, they are surpisingly easy to use. I plugged it in and within moments I was screaming at the computer and hurling things through the air in frustration. It took me about four tries to get the thing to finally work, and if someone had told me the social repercussions of owning this 3-by-2 inch piece of Frustration, I would have told them to shove it up their ass (which, as I mentioned before, is entirely possible).

I'm sitting on the bus, trying to enjoy the music I had taken 3 hours to load onto the damn thing (like I said, not technically inclined), when some girl walks up to me and screams something incoherent at me. Of course, I hear about 2% of what she's saying and simply reply with as stern a grunt as I can muster at the time. She doesn't back off, however, and continues to annoy me with her shrill cries of interest.

"You have an iPod too??? What colour did you get?" she asks as she pulls out a small pink iPod from her obviously fake Louis Vuitton purse (Believe me, when it's made out of your bretheren, you tend to know the real deal from a fake). "I got PINK!" she shouts overtop the competent guitar work of Jimmy Page. Oh God. I'm at full volume and I can't even ignore her. Either this thing doesn't go loud enough or she is actually trying to make me kill myself.

I try not to respond to her, but as she waves her diminutive DJ in front of me, I flash mine to her, just to get her to hopefully get the Hell away from me. Wrong move. She squeals with delight upon seeing my iPod and proceeds to ask me several questions all strung together in one high-pitched sentence. Why must technology systematically annoy every cell in my body? I sit there and try to think of some way to get her to go away without doing something illegal. Damn. All my ideas involve her bleeding.

As she starts rambling on about the contents of her pink possession, I start thinking to myself: At what point did owning an iPod become a cultural identifier? As if the fact that I spent way to much on something that doesn't do anything except play MP3's somehow entitles me to be a part of some exclusive club for other idiots who fell for the same marketing campaign? Like a support group for overpaid morons?

I feel cheapened somehow just for owning one of these things. I want to throw it out the window of the bus and deny ever holding its sleek metal frame. All I wanted was something to listen to "Baby Got Back" while waiting for the damn dentist. Instead I unintentionally became part of an exclusive clique of yuppies and techno-groupies that care more about what the player looks like clipped to their new skirt. I want to cram this thing up the next available oriffice of an Apple engineer.

In the end, I resist me temptation to dispose of my green gadget. I do, however, throw out the distinctive earphones and get myself some generic ones from the nearest Wal Mart. The iPod itself now resides deep down where no one can spot it and try to befriend me simply because I spent way too much on an MP3 player just like they did. I'm not saying I'm ashamed of my purchase, but I think it's better that no one mentions it, because I could probably get this thing elbow deep at least.

Trust me, it's just better this way.

(Disclaimer: Apple, iPod, and just about everything else is copyright Apple Computer. We really do like them, and if we can spend every extra cent we have on their products, we should be entitled to rip off their ad campaigns from time to time. Deal?)