Gotta Protect It, Brother!

I was beginning to believe I was a statistical anomaly. Research shows that over 102.7% of people will be the victim of some type of crime in their lifetime ( the stat seems a little high to me too, maybe almost impossible, but who I am to question the experts. Yes, that was a joke.  I know the stat is impossible, hence the reason I made it up.), however I had never had this experience. Was it me? Was I doing something wrong not to be a part of the victim pool? And then it finally happened yesterday early in the morning. My car was broken into by what I assume was some dirty meth head looking to obliterate a window into a million tiny pieces and grab whatever their shaky, scab-covered hand could reach, which happened to be my iPod, that they could trade in for their next fix. On the off chance that said druggie actually decided to keep the iPod as an entertainment device, and did not delete my play list, I will be on the lookout for an emaciated individual scratching furiously at their puss-filled soars while twitching in time to the rhythmic beats of Justin Bieber. While everyone says don’t blame yourself, and that the person who broke into the car is the criminal, I of course have been repeatedly asking myself why I left my poor, vulnerable portable jukebox in the car in the first place. After being angry with myself for a while during the morning, I looked at the bright side of things. Yeah, that’s right, a new iPod was in my future!

Given that the window had cost much less to replace than I had anticipated, I decided I would go ahead and spend a little more money and upgrade to the iPod with the fancy touch screen, envisioning my fingers flying deftly over the screen with Chopin-like grace making selections from movies, music and more, just like my coworkers who I had covetously watched do the very same things as I stood by, never believing that I would reach the upper echelons of technology and be part of the cool kids club. So yesterday evening I traveled to the local electronics store, bought the new iPod and a thin sheet of plastic that serves as a screen protector .

This morning, I haphazardly tore apart the screen protector box, thinking I would just be opening up this bad boy and slapping it on as sweet and simple as an elementary school teacher adhering a scratch n‘ sniff sticker to a 100% spelling test. I mean seriously, how complex could this be? Well, the sight of the instructions for the six-step process of appropriate screen protector application prompted me to head right back into the kitchen for a second cup of coffee to ensure maximum attentiveness during what I was now realizing would be a labor intensive task. As if I was heading into brain surgery or working in a crime lab, I was first instructed to vigorously cleanse my hands to avoid tainting the protector with skin oils. The next step was too apply an included application solution before handling the protector to avoid fingerprints. Fingerprint concealment? I began to wonder if I had accidentally purchased the mob hit man’s starter kit. I diligently sprayed on the liquid as instructed, and then moved onto the next step of peeling the sticky, plastic saver of screens from the paper backing to which it was attached. I attempted to peel the protector from two different corners, but met with resistance as the protector stuck to the paper and began to tear away at it’s parchment partner's fragile fibers. My pulse began to quicken as anxiety overcame me and I began to wonder how long the fingerprint spray would last? Was I wasting valuable seconds engaged in an adhesive-based Armageddon, only to find that by the time I was able to gain victory over my sticky adversary that my toxic skin oils had again risen to the surface of my fingertips and were waiting, like stealthy ninjas, to ambush the pristine clarity of the screen protector. I set down the protector, once gain doused my hands in the mystical fingerprint impeding elixir, and went back to work peeling away the protector from the paper. I had no trouble this time, and gazed back at the instructions to absorb the next step, which essentially was to spray both sides of the protector with the application solution. There was even a cautionary tip advising me to make sure that I sprayed the screen protector, NOT my device. What, you mean don’t spray liquid all over my electronic device? Oh, and don’t throw it on the floor and smash it with a giant mallet either? Oh, OK.

After spraying the magical mist on the screen protector, the instructions simply stated place the adhesive side down on the front of the device and “slide into place”. I did not quite understand this, but figured that maybe the application solution somehow created a frictionless surface between the adhesive and the device to allow for this alleged “sliding” to take place. That was a negatory Ghost Rider. Once the sheet was applied, the adhesive grabbed the screen in a death embrace, thwarting any attempt at maneuvering the screen protector into the proper alignment over the face of the iPod. I peeled off the protector, reapplied the solution (mind you, at this point, I was getting quite perturbed at having to use almost all of the solution, as I had intended to save an ample amount to spray on my fingerprints to use as a forensic countermeasure just prior to throttling the methamphetamine monstrosity that broke into my car, if ever the day came that our paths were to cross), and then placed the protector back on the screen, taking extra caution to make sure it matched up perfectly to ensure that no impossible sliding was required. I followed the rest of the instructions successfully, including pressing out the moisture bubbles with what the company called a squeegee, but looked like nothing more than a square piece of plastic to me. The bottom of the instruction document read, “For more installation instructions, go to blah, blah, blah website.” Why in the hell would someone want to go get more installation instructions? Isn’t a six-step process to apply a glorified sticker to the front of an iPod enough? However, if there were more instructions, why wouldn’t you include them in the package? What kind of company withholds part of the instructions for their product? What are these mystery instructions anyway? “Do not apply protector on a Saturday. Doing so may cause your device to explode!” or maybe “Do not attempt to use application solution as a forensic countermeasure.”