8…but let's not go there. The scene was in my bedroom, the first day of spring break. Damn school has to hand out report cards right before brakes. So there I was, sitting on my bed.
My grade point was 3.088, but hat just wasn't enough for my parents. My mother anyway. So after being royally grounded and receiving the most creative lecture (centered, creatively, on how I would become a fast-food worker when I dropped out of high school wile I was pregnant with my second child and dying of AIDS), I retreated to my room. Alone. Sad. I decided to write something and listen to music…
Imagine, then, my horror when I pressed the CD player's 'play' button and the screen flashed "HOLD." Huh, I thought. So I reached down, turned "HOLD" off, and tried again. Same results.
So I did what yes, even you would do under the circumstances. I tapped it. I pressed buttons. I threw it at a wall. I did everything but follow Instruction #1 in the owner's manual-REPLACE THE BATTERIES.
Finally I gave up. I decided, through a haze of anger a sleep deprivation, that I would have to do something drastic. It was surgery time.
I got out a lilac purple hair clip (for some reason, this particular clip has a little pointy part that works really well for taking apart small appliances). I had just the presence of mind to reach for a bowl to drop screws in before beginning the grueling procedure.
Three hours later, I had managed to find and remove the screws. Now came the easy part-actually removing the silvery plastic case.
And so the Walkman opened. Peering inside, I saw: parts. Lots and lots of copper wires. Some dust. The LCD. And, of course, the scary-looking cable connecting the lens and the rest of the stuff.
Wow, I thought. I am in way over my head here. So I blew off most of the dust, flicked the HOLD switch a couple of times, and put it back together, feeling all the while like I'd disturbed a sacred burial site.
Once I had it back together, I put the batteries and CD back in and pressed the play button.
-HOLD-
I ranted. I raved. I swore. I was just about to try crying when I though of something.
I walked over to my backpack and selected two AA batteries. My fingers trembling, I replaced them and pressed the play button…
The comforting strains of a bad rap-rock song broke the silence. Because I hadn't pressed the 'play' button, I'd pressed the 'radio on' button, and it had erased all my presets.
So all's well that ends well, and I went back to feeling sorry for myself. The CD player was… well, I cracked the casing and broke the lid-open mechanism. But that's okay.
Moral: Even though it looks fun, never touch the lens.