Rachel And The iPod

Written by Gerard on Monday 2 July 2007

It started a couple of nights ago. Rachel - who'd been put to bed numerous times that evening already - visited me in the attic and told me she'd stolen my iPod. I corrected her - "borrowed it, Rachel. I don't mind as long as you take care of it."

So she disappeared down the stairs and that was the last I heard of her. I couldn't understand why she wanted to listen to deafening rock music anyway, it's not normally her thing.

When it came my time for bed, I went looking for the iPod to listen to while I went to sleep. Bad habit, I know, but I usually need something to disengage my brain before I can get to sleep. Anyway, it was nowhere to be found. Not in Rachel's room. Not in the boys' room (where she'd ended up). And not in my room.

Strange, I half expected to discover the headphones tangled and protruding from a quilt somewhere, but there wasn't a trace of the iPod.

When I got home the next day, I asked her where my iPod was. I was completely expecting the thing to be in pieces, trampled underfoot by Rachel and her marauding gang of pals. Not so. She immediately led me to her bedroom and lifted a heart-shaped box off her shelf. She opened it up and there inside was my iPod, wound up as neatly as her five-year-old hands could manage. She'd even switched it off to save the battery.

As you can imagine, I was bowled over that she'd gone to such lengths to take care of the iPod. As you might expect, she was delighted to get so much positive attention for doing something so nice. The problem is, she's borrowed it a couple of times since and each time hidden it in a different place. In fact, tonight she was a little bit put-out when she couldn't find it. I had it upstairs charging.

I think we're going to have to agree on a timeshare arrangement for this, or I'll have to get her one of her own.