For the longest time I resisted buying wireless earbuds. I much prefer wired earbuds, mostly because ... they have wires. I never had to worry about them falling out of my ears and onto the ground. They would fall out from time to time, but they would dangle at my hip, sort of like a stethoscope dangling on a doctor, only instead of being able to listen to a heartbeat with the earbuds, you'd hear Weezer or the Foo Fighters instead.
There's no such safety net with wireless earbuds. If they were to fall out of my ears, they'd end up on the sidewalk, or the subway platform, or any other number of surfaces in this city I would never want my ears to come in indirect contact with. I'd have to burn the earbuds or toss them into the Hudson and then buy a new pair, and that would be too costly and time-consuming and possibly not great for the environment.
But I shifted my opinion a little after my most recent pair of wired earbuds started to fizzle out. At first, the right earbud went dead, which wasn't ideal. I'd rather not listen to 50% of a song; I'd rather listen to 100% of a song, in both ears, as music was intended to be listened to.
The more significant problem was that the microphone on the earbuds would often stop working. So, if I was on a phone call, I could hear what the other person was saying, but they couldn't hear what I was saying. Again, not ideal. For four months I was walking around the city having phone conversations that would begin with, "Are you there? Hello? Yeah, I can't hear you too well." I'd have no choice but to disconnect the earbuds from the phone and hold the phone to my ear, like it was 2009. (I would then resume the call while the earbuds were still in my ears, which I'm sure was confusing to the others on the sidewalk. I just thought it would be easier than holding the phone to my ear while wrapping up the earbuds. Seemed too difficult of a task.)
So, over the summer, I bought my first pair of wireless earbuds. The experience has been a mixed bag so far. Obviously there are positives — no tangled wires, for one, and, thankfully, they haven't fallen out of my ears yet — but I'm still in an adjustment period. I'm not exactly sure how to turn them on. Sometimes I need to hold down the button on both earbuds for three seconds; other times they turn on automatically as soon as I insert them into my ears. Do you know how I turned on my wired earbuds? I plugged them in. It was that easy. No confusion whatsoever.
Turning off the wireless earbuds is an even greater challenge. My understanding is that I'm supposed to tap the button on both earbuds for a second. And usually that does the trick. But then other times that just causes the earbuds to do whatever the heck they want. One time, I tapped the buttons and the earbuds started calling someone I haven't spoken with on the phone since my sophomore year of college. I swear, I don't even know how the number made it into my contact list. I was so panicked. I started pressing the buttons again, hard. More ringing. I actually cursed out loud, which is rare for me, but all sense of propriety flies out the window when you're thisclose to being forced to reconnect with an old schoolmate. After 10 agonizing seconds I was finally able to end the call on my phone's touchscreen.
Why did the earbuds make a phone call? Why did they call someone I haven't spoken with in 20 years? I have no idea. (If the schoolmate happens to be reading this: Why didn't you answer? I finally call you after 20 years and you don't pick up?)
That was a freak occurrence. But there have been several times lately when I've tried to shut off the earbuds and instead they play a song from Spotify at random. Emphasis on random. The last song they played: Kelly Clarkson's "Miss Independent." I'm not sure I've ever listened to "Miss Independent" on Spotify of my own volition. Don't get me wrong — it's a quality song. But when I'm trying to turn off my earbuds and the earbuds tell me, "No, wait a minute, before you go, you need to hear Kelly Clarkson's single from her first album," well, that's strange.
Another time not too long ago, I tried to turn them off and heard, "You ... change your mind ... like a girl ... changes clothes ..." Katy Perry, "Hot N Cold." My earbuds love 21st-century pop music from female artists whose first name starts with K, apparently. It's a very specific obsession.
But on the plus side, at least I get to hear 100% of the song, unlike with those wired earbuds I had.
