QuietComfort is quite comfortable!

When I traveled to New Jersey for the Memorial Day weekend earlier this year, I was roaming around the lounge in the airport looking to buy cheap headphones that I could use to listen to songs in my laptop during the flight. What started of as a hunt for headphones, turned into window shopping for books, 'sight-seeing' people and buying junk food, until I stumbled upon a Bose outlet. It was more of a kiosk than anything else with a typical sales guy demonstrating a couple of Bose products. I went to take a closer look and found that he was selling headphones and got me curious. I was just peeking at the items on display and he asked me to checkout one of those QuietComfort® 2 Acoustic Noise Cancelling® headphones. Well, the sound quality was excellent and it was a totally new experience to me. The sales guy explained how the noise-cancelling technology works and demonstrated the difference with conventional headphones. You have got to experience it to feel the difference. I was pretty impressed with it. Well, now the guy started selling it to me saying its great quality and it comes at a very 'nominal' price of $299 (with taxes comes to $324)! I told him straight that I felt it too much to afford for just headphones. Then we went to talking about other Bose products and then started asking me where I was headed towards and why I stumbled upon Bose outlet. It was ironic when I told him that I was trying to buy headphones to listen to music during my travel. Then he made me this offer to which I fell for. He said that I could buy the Bose headphones and use it for my trip and return it within 30 days of the purchase and get a full refund at any Bose outlet. I thought why not and all it took me was to swipe my debit card to get the headphones. After all, I was on my first long flight trip within the U.S. and was all excited.

I could enjoy the headphones for all of 20 minutes as my laptop ran out of battery. All I do was to use the headphones to listen to some sh*t that went in the television. Of course, good thing was that the noise cancelling effect totally nullified the loud background noise that you get in an airplane.

So, I showed off my headphones to my cousins and told them how I got a great deal to use these for just my trip and how I planned to return them when I came back. Well, I did come back, only to get into my all-work-and-no-life-kind-of-sh*tty-software-project that screwed me no end, and when a lightning struck in my mind at 5PM in the evening of the 30th day, I realized it was the last day that I got to return the headphones! I browsed through the Bose website to figure out the nearest outlet and the shop closing time. All I had was an hour's time and I had no car and neither do I know to drive, so I co-axed my colleague to take me to the Bose outlet to return my $324 headphones promising him that I would buy him lunch the next day. Well, I was at my office then and I had the headphones with me but I remembered that I had to collect the sales receipt. So, off we went to my house and then I realize that I really do not know if I 'really' have the receipt. After one of the shortest and sourest 'hunts' it dawned on me that I had misplaced the receipt.

It was one of those situations where you are embarrased at yourself to the core and the same time you try to put a brave front when you meet your friends. I went on to explain all and sundry (to whom I had 'showed off' my headphones earlier) as to how I was 'destined' to own it and how proud I felt owning it. :-)

Since when I realized that I was owning it for good, I started to consciously use it to listen to songs in my laptop though otherwise I would have never done so. After all, I never used it much during the 'trial' period. Then as I began to use it more, I started liking my favorite music even better. As days went, I wasn't happy listening to music from my laptop and I wanted to use it on the move. So, I ended up buying a MP3 discman as I wasn't ready to invest another $300 on an iPod yet.

The discman and the QuietComfort headphones are my best companions these days. The most pleasant hours of my day are when I use them during my travel to work and back. And none of those hours go by without listening to Elangathu Veesudhe , a true masterpiece, that soothes and elevates my spirit. Will post a separate blog on that song sometime later.

Well, if you think that the world is a noisy place then do check out this innovation.