So, since I’ve my shiny new iPod Shuffle, I’ve been mortified that I would misplace it somewhere. I mean, the thing is tiny, and since I don’t have it lojacked to track its every move, it’d be real easy to put it somewhere and forget where that was. I can just see some far-distant archaeologist trying to figure out why some bizarro 21st century biped needed an iPod in the very same place all the missing socks from the dryer landed.

Now, my MacBook I have a pretty good tack on. Generally, it can’t roam too far away without me knowing where its spiffy cool black self is. After all, it’d be pretty tough to lose a laptop behind the couch, right?

Well tonight I read a piece over at Ars Technica that likely sheds some doubt on the safety of the new MacBook Air machines. It seems that one of their reviewers got a loaner from Cupertino, and decided to use it for a while…. until it disappeared. Hard disappeared. Not to be found.

The current theory? His spouse scooped it up with the newspapers, and tossed the whole lot out. Yup. Almost two kilobucks of MacBook Air sweetness into the grinding, gnashing jowls of a trash truck, never to be seen again…

… Except perhaps by that far-flung archaeologist, trying to figure out why us odd 21st century types would toss out a brand new laptop computer. Then again, since the recyclability of the machine has been touted so much, it’s possible the thing’s been decomposed into its component parts, with the components finding new life as Zunes and HD DVD players.