OK, I think I am one of the last people in the world who has never ever even touched an MP3 Player, let alone use and own one. But seeing as how I have more than 30 hours of flying time ahead of me in the coming week, I decided it was high time to get one of those little gems for myself. I figured it would help keep me sane after sitting for sooooo LONG! "Sane" being the key word in this story.....

So on Saturday I went to my very favorite store, Target (location A), and purchased my my very first MP3 Player. I knew that I didn't need anything to hold 2000+ songs or movies or crap like that. I mean, pretty much the only time I will use this puppy is on this crazy long flight to Hawaii. I don't run, as evidenced by my enlarged waistline. And I can't imagine sitting at home with ear phones on - that just seems silly to me. So my point is that I was not willing to spend a lot on this product. I settled on the Momorex MMP8585. It wasn't a fun color but it had the visible screen like the big iPod and I like that feature. For the price, under $60, it seemed to totally fit what I was looking for. Now the Target guy tried to convince me to buy the big iPod of course for $200. But for something I can only see myself using a few times, that just seemed silly. I did look online before I went to Tar-jay and the review of this product claim that it only took 1-2 mins to install. Great, exactly what I need as my week is so insane and hectic.

I rushed home excited to play with my new toy. It came with 100 songs already on the thing. So I first listened to them to see if any of them were fun. They were not. One of the first songs was called something like "Plastic and Concrete" and it literally sounded like someone was rolling wads of plastic wrap on a concrete floor. Bad. Anyway, I spent hours trying to install all the software and get the computer to even recognize that the device was plugged in. Hours! I finally gave up and tried again on Sunday. To no avail.

So Monday I returned it to Target (location B) when I was running another errand. I actually exchanged it for the same product because when I spoke with the help line, they said the first one had issues and another one would be easy to get working. I am such a sucker! It was a pain in the ass to exchange something at this Target too for some reason. But I finally left with a new but same MP3 Player. Monday evening I tried again, thinking this would be ready to download music to in just minutes. After an hour or two I decided to go to bed and start over on Tuesday. I spent SIX BLOODYHOURS trying to get the damn thing to work. I talked to a variety of people at the help center who were less than helpful. Each one began by saying they were not allowed to tell me how to download music. Um I just wanted to know how to make the thing work before I took the time to delve into music downloading. Then they also all followed up by asking me why the guy before them had me do such-and-such. Um, y'all work for the company, not me. I don't know- I just did what y'all instructed me to do. Anyway, long story longer, after six hours and even a few tears shed out of frustration to one of the many unhelpful helpers (I should say that they were all nice - just not helpful), I decided to finally abandon the ship.

So I drove back to Target (location A- because it is closer to my house) to return the sucker and get the iPod Shuffle in hot pink. It doesn't have the screen to look at but it is pink and that is just so fun. After returning the Memorex MP3, I walked to the back to buy my tiny pink Breast Cancer Awareness iPod Shuffle. But they were out of stock. Oh, they had every other color there but not the hot pink one. And dammit, I was beyond frustrated at this point and wanted that fun pink cutie. I remembered seeing it at Target Location B on Monday so I booked it over there. At this point I didn't care how much time I was devoting to this stupid project because I was a woman on a mission. Target (location B) had several left (and it comes with a $15 gift card for i Tunes too - fun!) and I left crossing my fingers and arms and doing a dance in hopes that this sucker would work. Pleeeeaaaasssseee let it work. Three times is the charm, right??

It took close to 20 minutes for me to get it out of its turbo plastic packaging and I was on the verge of tears again seeing this as a bad sign. But wouldn't you know, I had it working in just minutes! MINUTES!!@! It is sooo cute and totally makes me smile. I have full faith that my little baby Apple iPod Shuffle will serve me well this weekend. It's not fancy pants - it doesn't do tricks and has only the very basic features. But I am a basic feature kind of girl. I mean, it took me FOUR days, a total of FOUR trips to TWO different Target stores, and three MP3 players to get one that works. Yes, basics....in pink.....suit me just fine.