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Eating dinner in my car is bad enough. Eating dinner in my car while the woman on the radio is discussing the horrors of childbirth is just unacceptable.
Last night before heading to the family literacy night event at Lancaster elementary school I grabbed myself a sandwich and a drink at a drive-thru and parked my car, intending to eat my dinner and listen to the news on the radio.
To my surprise, instead of talking about the 200 point drop in the Dow Industrial Average or the extra 800,000 people the government said filed for unemployment, they were talking about the history of childbirth.
And it wasn’t pretty.
Now, I’m all about kids. I like kids. I even have a couple kids. But I don’t like thinking about how they got here. Especially not when I’m eating my dinner.
Let’s just say the talk last night involved 16th century forceps and a procedure for fixing things that sometimes get damaged when babies are born.
Need I say more?
I admire women for their ability to have babies. It’s a very cool trick no amount of practice could help me achieve.
But I still don’t want to talk about it while I’m eating my dinner. And trapped in my car.
I tried changing the radio dial, but was greeted with excruciatingly bad pop songs that made my teeth hurt.
Lady Gaga? I don’t know what she was singing about: “Oooh la, fa-la-la, Da-da, ga-ga-ga.”
Aren’t songs supposed to have lyrics? Even if you scream them at the top of your lungs, they should still be actual words you are using.
I tried tuning to the local country music station, but I couldn’t eat while crying over the loss of my dog, my job, my father, my family.
Not that I actually lost any of those things. The songs just made me feel that way.
I called my dad (who lives in Florida) in the middle of the song, bawling like a baby.
“I love you, dad,” I said.
“What are you, drunk?” he asked.
I explained a song on the radio reminded me how much I love and miss him.
“That’s what’s wrong with that heavy metal, punk rock garbage you listen to,” he said.
I didn’t bother explaining any more.
I tried switching the radio again, but found more of the same bubble gum pop, a couple stations broadcasting only in Spanish, a few radio preachers and a channel seemingly devoted to telling me why the entire world is going to heck-in-a-handbasket.
Finally, mostly finished with my sandwich, I turned back to the news. Fortunately the birth-talk was wrapping up.
“And next up, giant squid and how to gut them,” the announcer said.
I decided right then and there I would skip dessert.
by JERRY BATTISTE
jerryb@news-banner.com
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