Ice Age Headphones

Without counting the obvious and ever-important things such as my wife, my family, the Gospel, and food, perhaps the thing that I have a hard time going an extended perioud time without would have to be music.

Life is well-deserving of a soundtrack. There is plenty of recorded sound out there to pair with almost any weather, mood, setting, necessity out there. And until someone (my guess would be Apple) figures out how to create some omnipresent playing of music that somehow only you can hear as you walk down the street (a la "Stranger Than Fiction"), I will gladly confine my OST to a pair of headphones.

Here comes the dilemma.

One week ago, my headphones mysteriously went missing.

This is not the first time. I have a horrible habit of leaving important things in unimportant places, particularly my car keys under the church pew. However, the lost item is usually found within the day, or at least the next. I was missing out on prime listening time. The grounds of Provo were covered in snow and nostalgia always brings me back to Bon Iver's "For Emma, Forever Ago" to appreciate the calm peacefulness that a snowfall can bring. But without headphones, I was stuck with my own thoughts and the sounds of rubber tires spinning on ice.

7th day without headphones...the plot thickens.

This brings me to today. I had been especially missing my headphones. I knew I had a walk to campus and a trip to the gym on my schedule today, two activities that should hardly ever been attempted without music. I drove to work in the dark morning, taking in as much iPod as I could in the car. The snow around town has mostly melted by this point. A warm front and brief rainstorms had helped clear the streets. I pulled into my favorite workplace parking spot (its free picking at 6:30 AM) and put the car in park.

As I opened the door my eyes looked down and I beheld one of Winter's most beautiful sights: a pair of silver headphones! Not just any headphones either, these were my headphones. My heart leapt with joy as my brain fired away, trying to figure out how they got there, and how they went seven days untouched.

My conclusion is this:

My headphones must have dropped from my car/pocket/backpack/jacket sometime last week at work. Not noticing, I must have driven away, completely satisfied with the speakers in my car. My headphones must have been preserved in the snow, like Brandon Frazier in "Encino Man," held in a safe place until one week later, the snow would melt and I would find them, lying perfectly next to my parking spot.

When it comes down to either a pleasant day in the sun, or a chilly winter's snowstorm, I will almost always choose the former, but this time, I am in debt to a nice coat of snow.