![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
When I started middle school, my mother bought me a Jansport backpack I thought was green, though she said it was "teal." It did everything I expected backpacks to do in middle school and most of high school. It carried books, food, books, clothes, books, skates, books. It kept secret things hidden. It did not fall apart, despite a number of dramatic interactions with trees, pavement, hillsides, buildings, me, and my bicycle. Only the zipper gave up the ghost after 6 years. I sent in the pack with the "lifetime warranty" card, expecting it to return with a new or repaired zipper, but the nice people at Jansport sent me a new blue backpack to replace the green one they considered not worth fixing.
It was the blue pack that I took to Mackinac Island, when I went for a flirtation workshop. (It was supposed to be a debate tournament for high school students. In the off season. At the Grand Hotel. I'm sure some people were really fooled.) It's been almost 20 years, and I am still profoundly touched by my friend's efforts to show me a good time that weekend. And I still have no idea how they got the piano player out after his curfew -- that was inspired. At the end of the weekend, we all took the ferry back to Mackinac City, before sorting out into school groups for the long drive home. The chaperones separated us (not as forcibly as they might have, really. The seniors on that trip were not supervised rigorously) at the dock, and we each picked up a blue Jansport backpack. If I'd still had my old green one, I might never have discovered the music of Jethro Tull. Or the custom of carrying around a tape player and lots of cassettes. Or at least it would have taken me longer.
Fast forward several decades. For most of the last 6 years, my backpacks were a Kensington laptop case, which was pretty good for what it was, but not a Jansport. And a Jansport I picked up at a yard sale for $2, which made me reluctant to presume on their lifetime warranty when the zipper broke. When the laptop case broke past my ability to repair it, a few months ago, I bought a backpack in a moment of foolish desparation, simply because it was there when I needed it badly, and had pockets in approximately the right places. More fool me. 6 weeks later, it has a fraying seam, a broken zipper, and a broken strap. So I bought a Jansport Sunday. (As it happened, I very nearly *stole* a Jansport. I slung it over one shoulder like it belonged there, and forgot about it while I did other shopping. It was so comfortable I didn't notice until the clerk handed me the stuff I'd just bought, and I took the bag off to put the stuff in it to carry home. I insisted on paying for it, despite the clerk's attempts to reassure me that I could have just walked out with it.) I looked at a bunch of more complicated packs at camping stores, with waterproof zippers I couldn't open, or sophisticated pocketing technology I didn't entirely trust. But I like Jansport. With the warranty, you don't really need to trust them...but I do anyhow.
There's one peculiar thing about my new backpack. It has a little zipper compartment at the very top of the bag. It's not quite big enough for a mass-market paperback, but would hold the smaller sort of diary or dayplanner. It has a little headphone picture on it, which makes me think it's meant to hold an audio device. There's even a slot in the compartment, so you can thread headphone wire through. It seems like an idea that's so clever it's stupid -- am I missing some important detail? I listen to audiobooks during most of my winter commuting. (I don't intend to stop listening to the Aubrey-Maturin books just because I have light to read and comfortably bare hands. Between the delays of inter-library loan and the pace of the books themselves, it's taking longer than I expected.) I keep my tape player in a pocket, or on my belt, or sometimes in my hand, because I need such frequent access to it. I might need to pause the tape for a moment to talk to the bus driver, or to cross one of the nasty intersections. When the tape skips, or when a section is drowned out by background noise, I need to rewind and repeat. Books on CD skip a LOT. Books on tape skip occasionally, and more often stick and need to be smacked. (I'm not making this up.) And with any audiobook, the "Omigosh, did he really SAY that? But didn't he just..." reaction demands pushing buttons rather than just looking back a few lines. Is it really that different with other kinds of audio tech? Or is it a matter of different multitasking skills and priorities?
It was the blue pack that I took to Mackinac Island, when I went for a flirtation workshop. (It was supposed to be a debate tournament for high school students. In the off season. At the Grand Hotel. I'm sure some people were really fooled.) It's been almost 20 years, and I am still profoundly touched by my friend's efforts to show me a good time that weekend. And I still have no idea how they got the piano player out after his curfew -- that was inspired. At the end of the weekend, we all took the ferry back to Mackinac City, before sorting out into school groups for the long drive home. The chaperones separated us (not as forcibly as they might have, really. The seniors on that trip were not supervised rigorously) at the dock, and we each picked up a blue Jansport backpack. If I'd still had my old green one, I might never have discovered the music of Jethro Tull. Or the custom of carrying around a tape player and lots of cassettes. Or at least it would have taken me longer.
Fast forward several decades. For most of the last 6 years, my backpacks were a Kensington laptop case, which was pretty good for what it was, but not a Jansport. And a Jansport I picked up at a yard sale for $2, which made me reluctant to presume on their lifetime warranty when the zipper broke. When the laptop case broke past my ability to repair it, a few months ago, I bought a backpack in a moment of foolish desparation, simply because it was there when I needed it badly, and had pockets in approximately the right places. More fool me. 6 weeks later, it has a fraying seam, a broken zipper, and a broken strap. So I bought a Jansport Sunday. (As it happened, I very nearly *stole* a Jansport. I slung it over one shoulder like it belonged there, and forgot about it while I did other shopping. It was so comfortable I didn't notice until the clerk handed me the stuff I'd just bought, and I took the bag off to put the stuff in it to carry home. I insisted on paying for it, despite the clerk's attempts to reassure me that I could have just walked out with it.) I looked at a bunch of more complicated packs at camping stores, with waterproof zippers I couldn't open, or sophisticated pocketing technology I didn't entirely trust. But I like Jansport. With the warranty, you don't really need to trust them...but I do anyhow.
There's one peculiar thing about my new backpack. It has a little zipper compartment at the very top of the bag. It's not quite big enough for a mass-market paperback, but would hold the smaller sort of diary or dayplanner. It has a little headphone picture on it, which makes me think it's meant to hold an audio device. There's even a slot in the compartment, so you can thread headphone wire through. It seems like an idea that's so clever it's stupid -- am I missing some important detail? I listen to audiobooks during most of my winter commuting. (I don't intend to stop listening to the Aubrey-Maturin books just because I have light to read and comfortably bare hands. Between the delays of inter-library loan and the pace of the books themselves, it's taking longer than I expected.) I keep my tape player in a pocket, or on my belt, or sometimes in my hand, because I need such frequent access to it. I might need to pause the tape for a moment to talk to the bus driver, or to cross one of the nasty intersections. When the tape skips, or when a section is drowned out by background noise, I need to rewind and repeat. Books on CD skip a LOT. Books on tape skip occasionally, and more often stick and need to be smacked. (I'm not making this up.) And with any audiobook, the "Omigosh, did he really SAY that? But didn't he just..." reaction demands pushing buttons rather than just looking back a few lines. Is it really that different with other kinds of audio tech? Or is it a matter of different multitasking skills and priorities?
