"
Here's the gist of the story as it was told to me: This guy was at a cookout where there was a bon fire. Anyway, it got dark and some of the people that were there started going around and scaring each other, playing "tag" in the dark, etc. Well, this guy was listening to his iPod around the fire, walking around or whatever, and someone came up from behind him and scared him. His normally firm grip on the iPod was gone. He fumbled for it, scrambling to catch it, but couldn't. Down it fell into part of the fire. Quickly he kicked it out with his shoe, but not before the damage was done."
Well at least this iPod user had the smarts enough to use his shoe and not his bare hands to get the iPod out of the fire. Its pretty amazing that the only real damage was to the plastic parts and not the insides. I'm guessing that an all plastic model wouldn't have lasted even the short time this iPod was in the fire.