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Feb 05, 2008

Dec 18, 2008

Satellite radio

The decision-making process in our house follows a proven, time-worn method. To wit, an issue arises; husband and wife engage in a lively and healthy debate about the issue; the relative merits of a possible solution are bandied about; more deliberation; and finally, a decision is made. My lovely wife Brenda often juggles the order of these steps, with a nod to spontaneity and to ensure whatever remaining healthy follicles on my head go instantly gray.
Case in point, when we picked up her new mini van it came equipped with satellite radio - or so I found out when the great, white beast rumbled up the driveway belting out “Sizzlin’ Hot Country” or some such channel. The after-the-fact discussion went something like this:
Brenda: I hope you didn’t mind us getting satellite radio.
Roger: (stunned silence)
Brenda: It’s got at least eight country music stations.
Roger: (gentle sobbing)
Brenda: When the promo is over, it’s less than twenty dollars a month for the next 24 months.
Roger: (sound of forehead hitting the table) 
I wasn’t exactly a fan of that particular medium. My concept of satellite radio was an unsavoury potluck of Howard Stern and corporate rock. Somehow I didn’t see the attraction of a grown man passing wind over the airwaves nor of listening to more Toto than if I was still in Kansas.  
But sometimes it pays to be wrong.
One evening, we had to pick up our daughter from a school dance. The rain bounced off the kitchen window like golf balls and neither my wife nor I were overjoyed at the prospect of heading out into the deluge. We flipped a coin. I lost. I lobbied for best two-out-of-three but was turned down. I didn’t even get to keep the coin. Defeated and muttering sweet nothings under my breath, I steeled myself for the task at hand. This trans-Atlantic crossing called out for some entertainment.
Like a man about to indulge in some secret, exotic pleasure, I turned on the radio and found the satellite stations. I had to discover for myself what bottomless pit my hard-earned dollars were falling into. I studied the list of stations that was longer than the Udora phone book. Managing to avoid telephone poles and oncoming traffic, I found what I guessed to be some sort of classic rock station. It played the usual suspects: Mister Mister, Night Ranger, Jefferson Starship, and some ‘80s hair bands that never seem to lose the peroxide. So much for secret pleasures.
However, the first few notes of the next song caught my attention; they were familiar yet distant. I couldn’t remember the title or even where I’d last heard it but the wailing guitar chords pounded on the door of some long-sealed vault in the back of my brain. I had to crack it open. The singer’s high-pitched squeal during the chorus finally unlocked that door. It rumbled open and dusty, moldy images of a grade 8 prom spanned the decades. I was transported to a darkened school gymnasium in Bramalea.
The DJ had just put on “Hocus Pocus” by the Dutch hippie band, Focus. A girl appeared in front of me and said, “Do you wanna dance?” Dancing to “Hocus Pocus” would be like dancing to a blender on full torque – which is exactly what everyone appeared to be doing. I wondered whom she was talking to and looked over my shoulder. There was no one there. I realized with a high-octane mixture of fear and sheer terror that she was talking to me. I had no idea what to do next. Up until that point, the extent of my relationships with the opposite sex consisted of being ignored by all the popular girls – and most of the unpopular ones. I was forced to rely on instinct. Somewhere in every pubescent male there lies a strand of DNA that contains the answer to the dilemma I now faced. I found it. I hurled myself at her and ensnared her in a massive bear hug like I had seen the cool kids do when “Stairway to Heaven” came on.
She uncoiled my arms from around her waist and politely informed this hormone in a running shoe that this was not a slow dance and I was not to touch her upon penalty of horrible disfigurement. She started to dance. I could just stand there and tell her I was doing a move called the Fence Post and that it was all the rage in Europe. But even my undeveloped grade 8 mind told me that was insane. I had to do something. I started to squirm and twitch like a poisoned rat but in the loose parameters of the art form at the time I was officially dancing.
Now, I can’t go anywhere in that mini van without switching on Blue Collar radio or Classic Vinyl. I’ve even decided to install satellite radio in the old clunker. One of these days, I’ll tell my wife about it. Maybe.