Lake Louise, dressed for winter

Gizmo disasters averted

Copyright 2006 Lydia Hinshaw

LAKE LOUISE, AB -- Road trips can be as formulaic as crime dramas. Tuesday night, we experienced the false-catastrophe moment that usually occurs about 10 minutes before the end of the show.
I've been through this before, and I'm qualified as a first-responder. So I knew what to do Prince Charming announced he did not know the whereabouts of his iPod. An iPod is a little gizmo that plays his favorite music directly into his ears. He loves it because he's learned to stock it with all sorts of exotic stuff. I love it because it saves me from having to listed to the Tibetan gospel reggae choir. This tiny machine is very important to both of us.
As is his typical behavior, when the Prince couldn't find his iPod in the first three places he looked, he pronounced it lost forever, left behind in the motel in Kalispell, 300 miles and an international border away. If this were true, I might as well abandon him move in with one of the local grizzly bears, where life would be more pleasant for the next week or so.
Two minutes later, I found his iPod, safe and sound with all its little power cords and ear buds, in a bag he swore he'd already searched thoroughly, twice. He offered a grudging thank-you, put back all the possessions that has been scattered during the iPod hunt, and fell asleep.
I lay awake for an hour, too wired to doze off.
Then this afternoon, we were web-surfing in a second-floor lounge where wireless Internet is available. The Prince stepped outside onto a balcony to make a cell phone call. I was paying no attention and didn't notice when he hurried back inside and took the stairs down as if he were a much younger man.
And so he could have gotten away with this, but for some reason he felt the need to confess. He had dropped his cell phone off the balcony and into a snow bank. It appears to have survived uninjured, and the Prince is his usual self.
I'm the one who's having a nervous breakdown.