The Clumsy Consumer, part 2

I'm sure you've all been waiting with baited breath for the thrilling conclusion of my MP3 player story.

So after I made my purchase, I got around to reading the fine print. Then I immediately forgot about it, putting my energies into tracking the shipping progress of the player. It was kind of unhealthy, how I kept visiting the UPS website every half hour, seeing my new buddy slowly crawl its way across the country:
5:32 P.M. CANTON, OH, US ORIGIN SCAN
8:31 P.M. CANTON, OH, US DEPARTURE SCAN
9:43 P.M.MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS, OH, US ARRIVAL SCAN

I could almost picture the little guy trucking along the Interstate, huddled amongst ladies underwear and herbal viagra supplements, just waiting to burst out of the package into my loving arms, wagging its little electronic tail and showering me with a caucophony of quality music. I hoped the UPS driver left the window open a crack when he had to stop for dinner. And would it kill him to leave out a dish of water?

Finally, after countless hours of patient stalking, I was greeted with this little online nugget:
Delivered on: Nov 15, 2005 11:52 A.M.
Location: FRONT DOOR
Delivered to: SOMERVILLE, MA, US

Yippppeeeeee!!! That night I was doing some boring thing like hanging out with my dumb friends or something, I honestly can't remember. All I do remember is taking my leave rapidly, mumbling words over my shoulder like, "Empeethree, happy birthday, get well soon, congratulations..."

I ran home, grabbed the box off the front stoop, burst into my room, tore into the package with my teeth (true) and shook the packing peanuts all over the floor. And there it was, in all its glory- 40 GB of...wait a minute.

All of a sudden key phrases in the fine print (RISK, chance, non-refundable) came back to me. In a wave of horror, I realized what was going to happen. I don't know why, maybe it was the fact that the previous owner, Samantha Townley, had etched her name and phone number in the back of the player. She also had purchased a custom leather protective cover, kind of like one of those "bras" you see on white trash cars at Hampton Beach. It struck me that no one who took that kind of loving precaution would ever get rid of their player willingly. They'd put it in a little lockbox at home with their diary and US Treasury savings bonds. That is, until the damn thing broke.

And sure enough, when I powered the little bugger on, it informed me it was in emergency recovery mode. It made a bunch of clicky, wheezy noises. It then said "Hard disk error" and shut down.

That's it. I'm cooked. I'll never buy anything off this "inter-net" again.