Song Box

Something I do sometimes these days is listen to the radio while I shower. I refrain from doing so when I'm getting up early out of consideration for my roommate, or at least I should do so. I'll listen to news radio, or NPR if I'm confident that they're not conducting a pledge drive. I couldn't bear to hear repeated, desperate pleas for my money while I'm in the shower. Sometimes I listen to music, of course, and that may be of any genre.

Lately what I've been going with is classic rock (which is the oldest music still on the radio outside of classical these days). That's typically reliable enough, although any commercial radio can be a bad pick for the shower depending on how the commercials and 'talk time' coincide with things on my end. A commercial break or prolonged instance of chatter from the DJ is apt to knock out much of my morning routine time.

Never before had I found myself finishing without having heard even one song, but the other day that very thing happened. I can't explain it, as subtle conversation tends to penetrate the noise and furor of the shower stall less well than hard rock. Perhaps there was some emergency that would keep any music from happening for all of ten or fifteen minutes. I think there may have been some music while I was shaving around twenty minutes in or combing out the tangles in my hair around twenty-five minutes in.

I can't bear to be burned like that, so the next chance I had, I turned to the true last resort of sports talk radio. There was a time when I listened to nothing else, but that's a long way from my first choice anymore. I've just got to learn the stations better. One of the other rock stations must know better than to deny the shower-bound listener their tunes for as long as that. Is it any wonder that I got the habit of singing songs myself? Who else can I really trust?