I believe I've mentioned before the close relationship I have with my iPod. Weirdly, however, I don't really enjoy using the iPod with headphones. They're uncomfortable, I can't hear other things going on when I'm using them, it bugs me having to constantly yank them out of my ears and say, "Huh??" every time someone talks to me, and they keep me from being aware of my surroundings when I'm walking along city streets. So, I almost never plug headphones into my iPod. Instead, I have a series of iHomes and connectors for car stereos so I never have to be without mah tunez (or, more accurately these days, mah gangsta NPR podcasts) whether I'm at work, home, or broken down on the side of the Beltway.

Lately, a lot of these direct mail advertisements for mobile phone plans have been coming with these actual-sized paper cutouts of mobile phones. I generally throw the mail away, but I'll pull out the little paper phone and give it to one of the girls to keep them occupied. They love them and carry them around in the car, having imaginary conversations with President Obama (at least I hope they're imaginary; I'd hate for him to know that my three year old's current favorite book is "The Nekkid Boy Book" - that needs a post in and of itself for explanation).

I was in the kitchen last night when suddenly music came on in the living room. When I went to investigate, I found this:


The Caterpillar had shoved one of her paper phones in the iPod slot and then managed to turn on the CD feature with a CD left in the CD tray that I'd put there many weeks ago and forgotten about.

It all makes perfect sense now, but you can bet I did a double take before I figured it out.