Yesterday was cold, no two ways about it. It may have climbed out of single digits by the time I left the house, but if it had, it was only just barely. I held my breath and crossed by fingers inside my mittens as I turned the key in the ignition, but the faithful old beast started right up. And, when the radio finished its blinky start-up thing, "Heatwave" was playing.
I think that represents a nice touch of irony on the part of the DJ. I guess I may stick with her after all. I have been considering switching stations because in the 70% of the time that they are not playing music (according to a semi-random sample which I conducted last semester for my statistics class) it seemed to me that she was devoting an inordinate amount of time to complaining about the weather. According to her, it is too hot or too cold, too dry or (very occasionally) too wet. If it accidentally looks like it might be a nice day - she always has a "yeahbut" the wind is going to blow. Seriously, around here it is big news if the wind is not going to blow. It is like Alice's dilemma - jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but never jam today.
Added to that, there is the guy who DJs the afternoon show which is on while I am heading home. I know this is pure bigotry on my part, but I can't stand his accent. I know and have known others from his particular corner of the universe, but his voice/speech patterns/regional accent - whatever it is - are continually irritating to me. I am willing to concede that as a person he may not be smarmy and pretentious, but his accent certainly makes him sound that way.
The problem is that I am a "one-stop shopper." I prefer to pay $2.75 for a gallon of milk to making a second stop to get it for $2.00 at the market where it is the weekly loss leader. I have only one station programmed in my car. If it fails me, I have no backup plan. I can't even turn the idiotic thing off - I can turn it down to inaudible, but I still know that it's on.
It failed me last week when they broadcast a HS basketball tournament for something like twelve hours a day. A small school tournament. Seriously, we're talking about schools that may graduate 10 to 20 seniors a year. I know these schools, my first teaching job was in one of them. Trust me, everyone who cared about those games was AT those games. The gym at the small high school where I taught would accommodate the entire population of the town - and that of their opponent's hometown. Oh well, I suppose basketball is music to the ears of many, even basketball from schools where it is required that every boy and girl in the high school be on the roster to put a team on the court. Schools that don't even try to field a regulation squad for football and have dropped back from eight-man to six-man, and still sometimes forfeit games because they can't field a team.
In the end, I listened to basketball, because I don't have a backup station. After some reflection, the good doctor (PhD, not MD) who does their sports announcing does a rather nice line in play-by-play patter - and it certainly no worse than the usual smarmy and pretentious.
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