As I documented in my column in the local newspaper, I lost my red iPod shuffle at the gym. Let’s take a moment of silence while we consider that the asshat who has it now had two easy chances to get it back into my possession: first, he could have just dropped it off at the front counter. Second, the name of the iPod was my phone number. So when he plugged it into iTunes, he could have called me.

Well, I used Apple’s Apple Store iPhone app to buy a new one the other day. I’d much rather have purchased it locally, but I decided that for this iPod, I’d get laser engraving. That way, if my iPod ended up in somebody else’s possession, they’d have the opportunity to return it to me every single time they used it.

Frankly, if the person who has my red iPod got my orange one into their hands, I doubt they’d return it to me. But I hope they’d feel slightly bad every time they used it.

On further reflection, I’ve had a lot of iPods stolen over the years: A 60gb iPod Photo, a 4gb original iPod mini were stolen from our locked car in our driveway once before Cassandra and I got married.

On the other hand, I’ve found a few iPods over the years, too. “But wait,” you say. “Found? Why didn’t you return them?” I tried. Here’s the flier I made and put up at a few local businesses, the high school and I even put an ad in the local paper. I got quite a few phone calls, but they were mostly on the less expensive iPod nano. But I did have one woman who was unclear on how it should work. She insisted I tell her which iPod I’d found. I wouldn’t of course, because then she’d have just said, “yes, that’s the one, return it to me!” and I ended up having to hang up on her after the third lap around that conversation.

My brother got that iPod and I think his lovely wife is using it pretty regularly these days.

Also, somebody gave me a first generation iPod mini with a dead hard drive. I replaced the drive with a 6gb compact flash drive I got for $18 from New Egg, then gave the iPod away to a girl in a less good economic situation than my own.

The last one I can think about is when I bought a 2gb second generation iPod nano for really cheap from someone. Well, Blaine’s identical iPod died, so I switched them out and fixed Blaine’s and now use it for running. And let me tell you, it feels right that I run with Blaine’s old iPod.

So I’ve had three iPods stolen from me over the years and I’ve given away at least three iPods over the years as well, one of which I went to kind of heroic lengths to try to return. I’m not even counting the original iPod shuffle that died for no good reason that Apple wouldn’t replace. Not counting the third gen iPod that died. And I’m not counting the myriad 4th gen black and white iPods I’ve cracked open and fixed for various friends along the way. I feel like my iPod karma should be better than it is. Alas, here I am waiting for yet another iPod to arrive from China — after a brief stopover in Alaska, FedEx tells me it’s now in Memphis — and this one put me $50 back. That $50 was supposed to be turned into a bottom bracket for my bike — a freebie, so maybe bikes balance iPods for me, but probably not.

To paraphrase the famous song, “mothers don’t let your sons grow up to be thieving bastards. They might be stealing from Creig who really is a pretty decent guy and doesn’t deserve it.”