iDumb

Dear People of the Internet,

Thank you so much for your very kind emails filled with such helpful advice. Most of you have been very reassuring and have said things like "not to worry. the mac will not delete anything permanently unless you actually go and empty the trash can, and i'm sure you haven't done that", or "you're probably just playing with the files too much - just tell Itunes where to look for the songs and it will retrieve them. they are somewhere on the hard drive, unless you somehow deleted them and then accidentally emptied the trash". WELL, as it happens, I DID empty the trash, you CAN be sure of it, and it definitely was NOT an accident. Here is what happened, in painful detail:

After much research, I finally figured out how to transfer songs FROM my iPod TO my computer. The iPod, as you know, doesn't have a built in function to do this; you have to download software to do it, which is really easy, and probably everyone ELSE already knew how to do it, but I didn't, and so once I learned, I was very Excited and Proud. Anyhow, it worked like a charm, and so not only was all my iPod storage of two+ years now on my gorgeous new Mac, I could also FINALLY check the option my lovely and loyal iPod always gives me of changing the link in my iPod and making my new computer my home computer. It was a very touching experience, all in all.

I should have just left well enough alone, and for what happened next, I blame my husband entirely (well. that's what he's there for). He kept bugging me about having iTunes with all the fabulous music only in MY username on the computer. Since he had set himself up his very own username and profiles, just like a Big Boy, he wanted HIS iTunes library to have all the music, as well. I didn't know whether this would cause my poor new computer to have to store all those songs twice or not, so I didn't really want to mess with it, but as he kept INCESSANTLY asking me about it, I endeavored to figure it out.

At any rate, I ended up putting iTunes in the share folder, and then decided to just put it in Cody's folder instead and be done with it. In the process of transferring the files back and forth, playing with my beautiful, gorgeous, marvelous Mac, feeling all synched up and One With The Universe, and getting over-confident and heady about the whole experience, I determined that I had saved too many iTunes music folders on my hard drive. I, in this mind-altering state, DETERMINED MYSELF WHICH ONES TO DELETE, AND THEN (oh yes) EMPTIED THE TRASH CAN. Why I felt obligated to empty that damn can so quickly is beyond me, but I did it, and then, as you already know, the rest of the story is history, except that part about me saying "oh.....shit." was a VERY kind glossing over of the actual reaction I had.

So, there you have it. I'm not only dumb, I make sure that I'm PERMANENTLY dumb. Not everyone can say THAT for themselves.