I’m even tuning myself out

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October 27, 2009

Anonymous The Hendricks County Flyer Tue Oct 27, 2009, 02:23 PM EDT

A few months ago, someone smashed in my truck window and stole my radio, depriving me of news, weather, sports, traffic every 10 minutes, and much more music, although with all that other stuff going on it’s hard to see how.

I was incensed. I’ve had this sort of thing happen before — windows smashed, radios boosted. I once had a Trans Am (I was young) and the T-Tops were stolen twice in a year. It has happened in every neighborhood I’ve lived in, and it has gotten a little tougher to swallow each time.

So, as I said, this time I was well and truly teed off. I had this big, gruesome hole in the dash where my AM/FM CD player used to be. Also a big gruesome hole in the passenger side door where the window used to be.

Thanks to my pals at the insurance company, whom I keep on speed dial, I got a new window within a couple of hours. Then, protected from the elements, I went out to find a new radio.

I came back with a rooty-toot Sound System featuring remote control. Which, now that I think about it, is really stupid, because it just gives people one more thing to fool with — along with a cell phone, hairbrush, GPS, Coke, large order of fries, Super Slop Burger, and lava-hot apple pie — when they’re supposed to be driving.

Anyway, the radio included the anti-theft system in which you remove the front panel of the receiver — the one with all the numbers and dials and things — so you can take it to a safe place. Clever. Too clever, as it turns out.

About a month ago, mine went missing.

I think I put it in the bag with the apples and popsicles when I was coming home from the grocery. I think I might have even tucked it in between the inner and outer bag (the people at my grocery still believe in double-bagging, bless their customer-serving hearts), where they put the magazines.

And I think I forgot about it and put the bags, with the radio still between them, in a bin. Which I took out that night to be collected in the morning.

In other words, the front of my truck radio has been recycled.

So for the last few weeks I’ve been driving around without a radio and you know what? With apologies to my friends in the radio business, I’m really sort of enjoying it. It gives me time to think. It saves me the trouble of switching stations when they play something I find ridiculous (which means I switch stations a lot). And it allows me to concentrate not only on my driving, but on all the really rotten drivers out there on the road with me. And I see them more than every 10 minutes, that’s for sure.

Of course, I have a big hole in the dashboard — not exactly gruesome, but not very attractive either — where the radio front is supposed to be, but that’s OK. I can order a new one anytime, but I think I’ll leave it as is for a while longer.

It reminds me that it doesn’t do much good to outsmart the window-smashing bad guys if you outsmart yourself in the process.

© 2009 Mike Redmond. All Rights Reserved.

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