Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Yesterday I was taking my normal walk with my dog, Una, and like normal, I was using my mini-tape recorder to record that day's Musing.

Everything was going fine until I stopped to pick up something Una had left behind. The mini-tape recorder fell onto the ground, and the battery case broke open, the batteries spilling out. The tape even popped out of the compartment.

Now this sort of thing had happened before, and every time, when I popped the batteries back in, it had been fine. This time, I popped the batteries back in, put the tape back in, pressed record and the record button refused to push in.

I tried popping out the tape and putting it back in again. That didn't help either. It was still not recording.

At this point, I figured there wasn't much I could do but buy a new one. But I had a couple other errands I had to run, anyway, so I might as well get them all over at once.

I packed up my recycling and took it to the recycling center. I stopped in the pet store and got another big bag of dog food for Una, as well as another bottle of doggie vitamins.

I stopped at the grocery store to stock up on supplies for the week, and then finally, I went to Office Max, where I picked out a new mini-tape recorder. While I was there, I also got another black ink cartridge for my printer and some compressed air, for cleaning my keyboard.

Since I was anxious to renew my writing of that day's Musing, when I got in the car I broke open the packaging for the new tape recorder, put batteries in and then popped in the tape I'd been using earlier, figuring I'd pick up where I'd left off.

But when I pressed record and play, the record button refused to push in. For the briefest time I thought the new tape recorder had something wrong with it, too. And then it hit me: it wasn't the tape recorder. It was the tape.

So I tried one of the new tapes that had come with the new tape recorder. This time, the record button cooperated. I pulled out the old tape recorder, put the new tape in and press record. Guess what? It worked.

The Gryphon asked me if was going to keep the new tape recorder or return it. I told him I thought I'd better keep it. The way things have been going for me lately, having a backup seems like a good plan.

Copyright 2004 by Alyce Wilson

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