What would you do for your iPod?

I love my iPod, I really do. I treat it pretty well, I refuse to sync it with other people's computers, and I bought it a nice case and put a Pucca sticker on it. I would never want any harm to befall my iPod. That would kill me a little bit on the inside. But would I jump onto the subway tracks to save it? Would I pay a man in a wheelchair to get it for me?

Then I felt a brief tug on my ears, and silence. The iPod had fallen through a hole in my coat pocket and skidded across the platform like a bright white hockey puck. There was a sharp thwack as it slammed into the side of the subway car and fell into the crack between platform and subway, down to the tracks. The whole moment had the brisk finality of a goal in air hockey.

Everyone facing the open subway door, and a number of people standing behind them, watched the iPod drop to oblivion. Then they looked up at me.

The man in the wheelchair sprang to his feet. A miracle?

"What you drop?" he demanded. "I get it for you. No problem."

My answer to both above quesions, of course, is no. I am very afraid of the mighty subway. I don't even change cars while the train is moving (well, maybe a couple of times in high school). I would probably ask someone not in a wheelchair to get it for me, but if no one was around to do it, I would give up and leave it to the rats and whatever else lives on the subway tracks. I might have a little ceremony for it though. An iPod wake or something.

[NY Times]