When I was in high school, I babysat for the two daughters of a professor who taught at the local private college. He was a nice enough guy, you know, for someone old. During the time I watched his kids, I didn’t have a driver’s license yet, and so needed to be picked up and dropped off by this nice, old guy. I remember that he always, always listened to NPR. I had never heard of NPR, but I thought it was boring, clearly something only old, boring people listened to.
One afternoon, I got home from babysitting and my father asked how the day was. I told him, in a fit of adolescent rage, that I hated driving with that guy because we always listened to the same, dumb, boring talk radio. Something called “NPR”.
My dad paused a moment, then said, “Huh. I didn’t know he was a liberal.”
This meant nothing to self-involved, high school Katie, but I took it as a measure of solidarity and we went about poking fun at this guy for years.
This memory was brought into stark relief last week. We had a brief period of beautiful warm and sunny weather. I was running errands with Colin, bopping around town, enjoying the day with the windows down and the radio up. I had just discovered a new station which plays “my favorite mix”, mostly consisting of popular songs from when I was in high school and college. I was listening and singing along loudly to an old favorite by the Smashing Pumpkins when I pulled into the post office parking lot. I was really enjoying the song, and didn’t notice that I pulled up next to a van with the windows down and a teenager sitting in the passenger seat. I looked over in time to catch the kid laughing at me.
“Nice singing, lady.”
Little brat.
I could feel my blood pressure rising and my face getting red. I was so concerned with defending my radio choice that I said, without any thought whatsoever as to what I was saying:
“I was only listening to that station because it’s Pledge Week on NPR.”
And I picked up my baby and went into the post office, resigned to my fate as an old, boring lady. Then I went next door to the drug store and picked up some hair nets and Polident.
3 Readers rock!:
That is so funny! And TRUE! Lord have Mercy, I do that all the time and my daughter, who is 15, doesn't want nothin' to do with the music I enjoy. I like "Rock" from the 70s, and she likes Christian Pop Music and Classical stations that play Sarah Brightman. To tell you the truth - she's got better taste in music.
Susan
http://www.raisin-toast.com
LOL Don't forget your arthritis meds and Scholls foot powder...
HAHA! That is so true.
Teaching high school one gets used to being reminded how old you are.
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