I got a lovely going away present from my family in the form of an iPod Shuffle. It’s one of those new Shuffles, those extremely tiny, no controls on the actual iPod, iPods. It’s no bigger than my pinky finger but it holds about 1000 songs. I take it to work with me so we can listen to music in the shop, and for the first few weeks, everyday someone else would say “What is this!?” and I’d say, “It’s an iPod,” and they’d say some variant on “How many songs can it hold? Like ten?” and then I say, “Actually, I have about 800 or so.” Usually at this point they just stare and raise their eyebrows. I think, perhaps, that England does not yet have the new version of the Shuffle.

As I mentioned this Shuffle does not actually have any controls on the iPod itself, all the controls are built into the headphones. This is great because it means you don’t have to take the iPod out of your bag, or pocket, or from the inside of your jacket, or wherever you’re keeping it while you listen. All you have to do is squeeze the button area on the headphones (under your chin) the correct number of times so do whatever you want (1 to pause, 2 to skip a song, 3 for previous a track, etc) . The bad thing (or things) however, is that if you happen to be using the iPod plugged into a speaker dock, like I do at work, you have no control (since the headphones can’t be plugged in at the same time), meaning you can’t skip a song , which could be a problem if, say, Dennis Leary’s “A**h***” happened to come on or anything by Blink 182. The other problem is that you have to wear the headphones supplied by iPod or you can’t control your Shuffle.

I have seen thousands of people wearing the signature white iPod earbud headphones but, and it can’t just be me, I can’t get those things to stay in my ears to save my life. I have tried every angle to get them to stay in but to no avail. My ears are just too small. And if I do get them to stay in, somehow, it’s all I can do to keep them there. I have developed a list of things I cannot do while wearing the earbuds in an effort to actually keep them in my ears.

1. No yawning – the slightest jaw moving has one bud popping out, resulting a gentle tug of the wire and subsequently popping out the other bud.
2. No eating or chewing gum – the exception to this rule is hard candy. As long as you put the candy in your mouth before you insert the earbuds and as long as you never bite down on the candy, no matter how small and sharp it gets.
3. No swallowing – to avoid unnecessary swallowing you must train yourself to only breath through your nose while wearing the earbuds. This will reduce the amount of saliva you create and minimize your need to swallow.
4. No walking – now this one is tricky as most people, including myself, usually listen to their iPods while walking somewhere, like work or school. The solution to this obstacle is to master the glide. Keep all movements smooth and level. Try not to bob or sway, any oscillation may cause the earbuds to dislodge. To avoid reaching critical frustration levels, never under any circumstances attempt to wear your earbuds while working out at the gym.
5. No head turning – When wearing earbuds it is always best to be stationary. For best results, pick out a comfy chair and a spot on the wall and keep your head pointed at this spot for the duration of the earbud usage. Now, of course, staring at a wall will undoubtedly be extremely boring so I do encourage you to close your eyes and image what the music looks like, but by no means should you let yourself get taken away by the music because any dancing or melodic movements may cause ejection. If staying in one place is simply not an option, take the time to plan out your walking routes to minimize right angle turns. Avoid intersections if at all possible. This may make your walk significantly longer but try to take only roads with slightly curving angles to make the directional transitions that much more subtle.

Well, those are my tips for keeping earbuds in irregularly tiny ears. I hope my confession has made it easier for some of you suffering with the same affliction to cope. You are not alone.