Headaches over headphones

You’re leaving the house. Jacket? Check. Phone? Check. Earphones? Che- where are my earphones? Where are my earphones?!

Everyone has a pair that they love. And if we happen to leave our lifelines at home, it’s the end of the world as we know it.

“I feel like I lost something if I can’t listen to music,” freshman Mckenna Stratton said.

For example. last year a quasi-friend of mine had Beats by Dre that he would wear every day. You would think that seeing as he spent hundreds of dollars on the headphones and is careful to have them wherever he goes, he would put them to good use. Instead, he wore them around his neck, like any other accessory. But man, you should’ve seen his face on the days he forgot them.

And for what? The dark cloud hanging over his head when he was without his beloved Beats might seem a little comical, but almost all millennials are guilty of over reacting to forgetting headphones, myself included.

“Anywhere I go there are earphones. If not, I beg to use other people’s,” sophomore Nahom Nega said.

Our constant need to have earbuds in our possession kind of resembles OCD. We panic if we pat our pockets and can’t find our headphones, but how much do we actually use them in the first place?

We’re not, or at least aren’t supposed to be, listening to music everywhere we go. Most teachers don’t allow students to wear earphones during class, you can’t efficiently study with music blasting and it’s hard to hold a conversation with both ears occupied. So when you think about all the times you’ve moped around because you were deprived of headphones for a few hours, you probably feel a little silly.

“If you get upset for not having your earphones or headphones with you and you’re only going to be out for a short period of time… You’re definitely overreacting,”  junior Daniel Joya said.

Now by this point, I’m sure all the music fanatics are rolling their eyes, thinking to themselves “Well, I use my headphones constantly, so this doesn’t apply.”

I’d say I have a pretty serious music addiction myself, so I understand where this idea is coming from. But do you really need headphones when you’re going to a concert or the movie theater? You’re paying to experience something that requires two ears (sans buds). So when you freak out about leaving your headphones at home, you’re either wasting your money on the event or (and this is more likely) being a drama queen.

I love my earphones as much as the next gal, and even though I’ll never admit it, it’s honestly a little comical for the earphone army and me to be groaning and moaning on the way to an earphone free evening at a friend’s house.