25 Years of iPod Brain

I spent the summer of 2004 working at a food establishment that sold “subs, wings ‘n’ things.” My employment was a little dubious; I was 14, which I think was fair game in the state of Vermont, but I got paid in cash and wasn’t allowed to use the deep fryer. My coworker was a woman with a son named Moose; she enjoyed giving me advice for my upcoming high school experience (“Go to class”). My boss was fond of sending customers off with full-sized bottles of ketchup in their to-go bags. I spent a lot of time pressing raw potatoes through a metal french fry cutter into a big plastic bucket. At summer’s end, I brought a stack of cash to Best Buy and bought a fourth-generation iPod. Now my life could truly begin.