Gambling is Fun...but not with your life

So, I'm happily running to the catch an L train this morning, "A Little Less Conversation" -- the Junkie XL remix of the Elvis song -- playing, and a nice man sees me coming and holds the doors for me.

But as I jog up, my iPod flies from the pocket of my sweatshirt and onto the tracks. I let the doors close and the train pulls away.

Shit.

I can see it lying there, still playing along.

"You drop your walkman?" one of two boys asks me. I guesstimate their age at 12.

"Yeah," I say. "My iPod."

"Shit," they say.

Now, when I was younger, I used to ride the L everyday to and from high school at Stuyvesant. I have many memories of friends jumping down into the tracks to retrieve something or other, and safely coming back to the platform.

As I thought this over, one of the boys said, "I'll get it for you."

Even though I know better from stories I've heard from a friend who I know is going to be mad at me for doing so, I jumped down, after telling the kids, "Let me know if a train is coming and help me up if I can't do it myself." I couldn't let a 12 year old take the risk for me, and he looked ready to jump.

I'm pretty spry, and after 3.5 years of martial arts, I know how to hoist myself and jump over things. My heart pounding, I easily jumped back up.

The boys walked off as nothing had happened, and my iPod is fine. It was playing (you can't make this shit up) Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life."

Yes, yes, I promise not to do it again. When I got to work, I of course was greeted with this sad news from Gothamist.