Can I quote you on that?

Wednesdays are kind of tough days to find something to do, but seeing as it was the only day this week that both the lady and I had off, we had to make do.

I was fortunate to utilize the couple hours we spent shopping by purchasing something I actually needed.

This is now the third voice recorder I've purchased.

I still have the first one, also an Olympus model, but in a cooler-looking blue color. Problem with that bad boy though is it just decided to stop working. At least it broke down before I left to cover the game that night.

While that relatively inexpensive model got me through college, I misplaced it after graduating and purchased a new one shortly before covering my first game. Some months later, the original Olympus re-appeared and the clunky-looking Maxell I'd replaced it with vanished.

The last game I covered was my first where I relied only on my handwriting when conducting interviews after the game. I approached the situation with a good deal of confidence in my ability to accurately transcribe the words of a high school athletics coach. Besides, I'd feel like I was doing it the "old school" way.

I was wrong.

Considering that most coaches speak entirely in cliches, many sentences could be written even before the coach has finished his thought. I remember thinking that when I replayed the audio after getting home from most games, taking for granted that I even got what was said on tape, seeing as how I hadn't bothered to write any of it down.

But coming back to the keyboard with only my handwritten statistics and a few pages of unorganized quotes really brings out that enormous second-guessing part of myself. When you have somebody on tape, there's no argument about what was said. It's right there. Have a listen, if you'd like.

I stood there in the store today, comparing my options. A majority of the recorders hovered around $150, but I sure as shit wasn't going to spend that kind of money. Sure, what I record on it might seem priceless to me after leaving the game, but once again, this is the third one of these things I'm buying.

So I grabbed the only digital one that was comparable to having to fill up the gas tank. On the way home, I looked over the packaging and wondered why the others were so much more expensive when the model I'd bought seemed to have more than enough memory.

I opened it up when we got home, plugged in the batteries, and commenced with the usual initial testing line of, "A-hey, this is Homer Simpson." (It's taken, I believe, from this episode.)

Upon playing it back as a way to remind the lady that I'm not just another pothead server from that place over by the movie theater but actually a real (on occasion) journalist, I noticed a small difference in my newest recorder: No volume button.

But I was able to play the clip back in three different speeds, none of which really sounded all that much faster or slower than the other. She didn't seem as impressed or fascinated or even mildly interested in the whole thing, asking me to get her, of all things, a pen.

She began filling out a sudoku puzzle while I slipped my new toy into its nifty carrying case and set it on the bed, the second-guessing part of me already wondering if that's where I really left it.