I have been using broken headphones since September. And it wasn't like I was preserving them because they were high quality, expensive, or possessing of some deep sentimental value; they were cheap, shitty headphones and I didn't buy them, but found them somewhere like the junk drawer of the front hall table at my parent's house.
I don't honestly know if they ever worked.
The problem was that only the right earbud reliably produced sound. If I played around with the cord I could sometimes get sound out of the left one. This meant that I would be walking around with one hand jammed in my pocket, stiffly trying to hold the wire in place so that I could get sound in both ears.
I didn't really consider buying a new set because the old ones were still KIND of working (much like my punch-it-to-turn-it-on, blue-screen-of-death-is-the-new-effective-desktop, hasn't-had-an-"e"-key-since-March Dell laptop), but leaving work last night, I decided that, as a young professional, I DESERVED a pair of working headphones. I have no idea what my job has to do with deserving headphones, but whatever. I marched over to the Eaton Center to get some.
I went to The Source, even though I have no idea what they actually sell there - I actually thought they sold appliances. I found the headphone display and made a sad discovery - they didn't have any headphones with the little headband bit. I mean, they had stereo headphones, but I needed headphones for the gym. I hate the little earbud ones because my ears are abnormally (adorably?) small, and the earbud guys don't usually fit in them.
I caved and bought a pink pair with squishy ends that you jam in your ears because I did go to the mall for headphones. They actually stay put ok.