Heads up, readers, it's time for the Insider's first-ever APB. Somewhere on the streets of Concord, there is an iPod yearning to be returned to its loving owner.
The iPod has been missing for almost two months and has been spotted just once in that time, so it may be cold or frightened. Please approach it gently if you spot it.
Eleanor Broussard was first separated from her iPod on Aug. 17, at the corner of North Main and Warren streets. She has since posted fliers downtown – which is how she caught our attention – and penned a Craigslist message, to no avail.
It's a black video iPod, with a black front and a “silvery” back, according to Broussard, with a slightly chipped corner. It was last seen wearing nothing but a pair of “really horribly outdated cheap headphones,” she said.
She remembers vividly the day it went missing. Things started harmlessly enough as she took the iPod on a run. When she returned home, she stopped in the backyard to do some stretching, resting the iPod on the hood of her mother's car.
But she forgot about it until she had driven to pick her mother up from work downtown. Remarkably, the iPod survived the drive down South Street to South Main Street before falling off as the Broussards “swooped through” the intersection at Warren Street.
Broussard scoured the city on her scooter that evening but couldn't track the device down.
The case had just about gone cold when Broussard received her first lead, from none other than her college advisor, Tom Devaney. Devaney had apparently stumbled upon the iPod on the road outside his studio, but seeing no owner, he placed it on a flower bed at the street corner.
In a cruel twist of fate, he was unaware it belonged to one of his own students until he recounted the tale at New Hampshire Technical Institute and she said it was hers.
According to Broussard, she and the iPod had been in a long-term relationship for about five years, with no signs of distress, although she did admit to occasionally leaving it on the floor at the gym.
She is offering a cash reward, though she “hadn't quite formulated the amount.” She said it would “sort of depend on how ecstatic I was feeling and what was in my back account at the time” of its return. She estimated it would be somewhere in the $50-$100 range, or could come in the form of an iPod mini she has been using in the missing device's stead.
The iPod was last heard playing Broussard's eclectic variety of Nordic metal, including Blind Guardian, Korpiklaani and “a lot of bands with weird Finnish names and dramatic, heroic sounding names.”
Foul play is not suspected, though at this point Broussard said she can't rule out the possibility someone sold the item or threw it away.
She agreed that Liam Neeson would be a fine addition to the investigative team, but isn't holding out hope that he'll pitch in because his imaginary Hollywood daughter isn't missing along with the iPod.
As for what she's hoping for? Nothing more than the device's safe return, no questions asked.
“I really bear no ill will toward the person who found it. I hope they have been enjoying it if they have been listening to it and I'd be thrilled to receive it back and have it returned safely.”
