My little Sansa SanDisk mp3 player knows all. I went to bed in a mood, and I woke up in a mood, and then I didn’t get out of bed and my mood got worse until I basically threatened myself with bodily harm (it’s called being fat and lazy) if I didn’t get up and run, so I did. And I’m glad I did. (No surprise there.) The sky was overcast and the temperature was in the mid-sixties and the humidity was, well, it wasn’t high, and I had just taken two days off (which is why the threats were effective), so my legs were fresh, and it felt good to run. Even then, it would have been just okay if it weren’t for my cute little purple mp3 player.
I don’t know what songs played during the first few miles (maybe some Van Halen?), but I know that as I coasted downhill about a mile and a half from home, Dean Martin’s “Good Morning, Life” started, and then with a half-mile to go (and the last incline in front of me), I heard Stevie Wonder’s harmonica heralding Sting’s “Brand New Day”.
I am as certain as I can be that my mp3 player has become sentient. Maybe it happened after a certain number of hours of use for such a tiny little device, maybe it needed this exact combination of sweat and wind and weather, or maybe all mp3 players become aware (or have always been aware), but I KNOW that mine is now. There are a LOT of songs on it, and while many of them are upbeat (I do use it for exercise), they aren’t all upbeat and they’re certainly not all that positive and life-affirming. I mean, really. What other explanation could there be?