Can You Wash an iPod?

Can you wash an iPod the same way you wash clothes? And if you do, will it survive?

But today I felt energetic so I pulled out all the books that were stacked at odd angles, making a huge pile on the floor. Then I decided to throw them all away. That’s it–either toss them on the shelf or throw them away. Nothing in between. Herewith the lady of the house entered my office and said, “You’re not throwing away all those books, are you?” It wasn’t a question–sort of a comment/rebuke/indictment. So I looked at the books and thought, “Well, I’m going to throw them away anyway.” Then she left to go shopping, and I thought again. “I’ll put them in black plastic bags and take them to the trash,” which I did. Then I decided to take them out of the trash, put them in the garage, and at some unidentified point in the future I will take them out to the lodge across the lake from the cabin in the woods where we lived for 20 months. I can leave them there forever, basically, or until Josh, Mark and Nick decide to go through the books and take whatever they want. So the books are now in my garage, awaiting their eventual transport to the lodge.

Back to the iPod. All of that set me on a cleaning binge–very unusual for me. So I started straightening up my desk and my files. Not a good idea because it’s depressing once you start down that road. Too many decisions to make. And that led me to look for my iPod Shuffle, the one Mark and Vanessa gave me for Christmas. I used it on our trip to the Czech Republic a couple of weeks ago, and I thought I used the earbuds since then to listen to some audio files on my computer. But I couldn’t find the iPod or the earbuds. Looked everywhere–on the desk, in the drawer where I throw everything, in the big credenza drawers, and even in the cabinet to my left, the one filled with various pieces of electronic flotsam and jetsam, all hopelessly tangled. That was even more depressing. Then I decided to clean out the closet in my office, the one where we store my books, the foreign translations, plastic CD jackets, business cards, KBM refrigerator magnets, a paper shredder, a digital recorder, extra stationery, a spare printer, three sport coats I never wear, eight boxes of old sermons on cassettes, two boom box speakers, two smaller speakers, cords that hook something to something, and, unaccountably, a small can of paint. Marlene had mentioned that I should put those eight boxes of old sermon cassettes somewhere else so I moved them to the attic. Cleaned out more junk, and now the can of paint is on the bookshelf I cleared out earlier today.

Back to the iPod again. I couldn’t figure out what happened to it. Looked in every likely spot, including my computer bag. No luck. Decided Vanessa had used the earbuds but that didn’t really make sense to me. So I sat there, compulsively moving things from one place to another. At some point Marlene came in and said, “Did you look __________?” Fill in the blank with six helpful suggestions. Already looked in all of them. Then she said, “Maybe it’s in your Cannon Beach jacket.” That’s the jacket I wore to and from the Czech Republic. “I washed it and hung it up in the closet,” she said. So I looked, and there it was, iPod and earbuds all jumbled up in one of the pockets. They had survived the washing machine and the dryer.

But would they still work? I tested the earbuds and they work fine. Ditto for the iPod. Obviously I was wrong about using the earbuds in the last few days. They have been in my jacket pocket ever since our long flight from Amsterdam to Memphis a week and a half ago. Turns out my sweet wife was right about everything–the bookshelf, the closet, even the can of paint. And she was right about the iPod too.

My research is now complete–and my office at home is cleaner than it’s been for a while. Can you wash an iPod and will it survive? The answer is yes, but I wouldn’t recommend it.