These days, I feel like I’m losing the battle to the other woman in my husband’s life. Seems she gets all his attention, whenever she wants it. It could be because she’s younger than me, flashier and something of a status symbol. She slips right along with him, always happy to hit the road, and he isn’t shy about displaying her in public.

I’ve noticed that she gives him what he wants in ways I simply cannot. For example, she’s an authority on what’s going on in the news, and can keep him informed day or night. She’s always available, and long after I slip under the duvet and doze off, she’s willing to sit through a movie, check the stock market figures or fiddle around on Facebook with him. She never makes demands and only wakes him when he specifically asks her too.

Even worse, she’s winning my kids over, too. They ask for her a lot, and fight to have her to themselves.

Okay, I confess – it’s the iPod I’m referring to, the gadget that replaced the Blackberry some time ago and now monopolizes the attention of my entire family. But that iPod gets so much attention, it’s hard not to think of it as the other woman, an annoyingly persistent accessory that won’t go away and incessantly distracts everyone into a trance-like state.

She buzzed me awake the other day at 5 a.m. to deliver a score on a game my son was playing. She mesmerizes my hubby until the wee hours of the night with movie after movie. My kids adore her endless selection of games, – even my two-year-old loves her for playing Barney on demand. The only person that can’t stand her guts is me.

I’m an old-fashioned gal who resisted a cell phone right from the get-go and is still digging her heels in. When I think of the good old days, it’s a time when the only distraction was the television. Music was played on a CD player or radio, and when we wanted to watch a movie we rented a video or DVD and went to bed together afterward. The bedroom was a space for reading, intimacy and rest, a safe haven where heart-to-heart conversations happened and we finished our sentences without trailing off into a distracted nowhereland.

The iPod comes to bed with us now, beeping us awake in the morning, spewing out movies and reducing our reading time with intrusive, obnoxious noise. It interrupts our conversations and frequently takes priority when there are more important things going on immediately around us. My husband and kids are defenceless before the iPod, incapable of resisting its charms. I’ve noticed it’s the last thing he looks at before turning the light out, and the first thing he reaches for in the morning. Who wouldn’t get jealous?

I’m fighting the iPod but my voice is getting lost in the turmoil of ringing cell phones and unfinished sentences. I’m a dinosaur in an iPod world, committed in my refusal to embrace and be mesmerized by this annoying gadget. If you look up from the message you’re texting, the Facebook page you’re updating or the voicemail you’re leaving, you’ll see me. I’m the one shaking my head in amazement at all the things you’re missing by staring down at the screen, hostage to the iPod.