Radio days
I’ve had my Mazda for over a year, and I have to confess that I don’t know how to change the radio station.
The instructions read like an in-depth article in Popular Mechanics. Additionally, you need some athletic prowess to accomplish said task: Hold one button down while toggling the other button and pressing down in a series of swift motions. I’m convinced I needed three hands to do it properly.
I consulted a YouTube tutorial for help but to no avail. I’ve been stuck listening to the preset stations.
If you’re wondering how I managed to get preset favorites in the first place, I will tell you. The “pre” in preset stands for the previous owner. Unfortunately, the previous owner and I had very few radio stations in common. The former driver liked country music. That’s a hard pass for me.
Once, I walked out of Great Clips in Bridgeville because Billy Ray Cyrus was whining about wanting his mullet back. It seemed incongruous at a hair salon to hear someone purposely wanting a mullet and crooning about it.
But I digress, like I do. Instead of listening to the radio, I’ve been listening to podcasts. I had to skip the self-help and meditational ones because I was once instructed to close my eyes at the entrance of the Fort Pitt Tunnel. I refer to it as the time “Shakti Gawain almost got me killed by a bread truck.” I won’t say the name of the bread truck, but I will tell you that it’s a Wonder I survived.
It turns out that being unable to fix a car radio may run in the family.
For several weeks after my surgery (read my May 28 column for reference), I was unable to drive. I had to sit in the back seat of a car and hold a pillow to my chest because the seatbelt chafed against my scar. I would insert a “Driving Miss Daisy” wisecrack, but that movie came out in 1989 and that joke is past its expiration date.
When I got into my mom’s car, a jazzy version of “On the Sunny Side of the Street” was playing.
The next time I got into her car, I heard it again.
I said, “Your radio station played the same song last time I was in your car.”
She didn’t believe me. Then, she said, “I haven’t heard the news or the weather on this station in a long time.”
Then, another song played, and I swore I had heard it before. It was deja vu all over again.
Sure enough. She was unaware that she had a CD stuck in the player.
“How long has this been playing on a continuous loop?” I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders, which was alarming because she was driving, and said, “I’m not sure.”
“Whose CD is it?”
I got another “I’m not sure.”
I wanted to ask, “Is this even your car?” But I was afraid of the answer.